Going Beyond Climate Change Risk Management: Insights from the World’s Largest Most Sustainable Corporations

In this study, we investigate whether firms recognised as superior sustainability performers respond differently to climate change regulatory, physical and other risks/opportunities and examine whether such differences predict sustainability performance in subsequent years. Further, we seek to gain...

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Bibliographic Details
Authors: Elijido-Ten, Evangeline O. (Author) ; Clarkson, Peter (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
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Published: Springer 2019
In: Journal of business ethics
Year: 2019, Volume: 157, Issue: 4, Pages: 1067-1089
Further subjects:B Q54
B World’s largest firms
B mixed methods
B Carbon Disclosure Project
B Global 100 Most Sustainable Corporations
B G14
B Q51
B Climate change risks and opportunities
Online Access: Volltext (lizenzpflichtig)
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Summary:In this study, we investigate whether firms recognised as superior sustainability performers respond differently to climate change regulatory, physical and other risks/opportunities and examine whether such differences predict sustainability performance in subsequent years. Further, we seek to gain insights from climate change programs and strategies of both superior and inferior sustainability performers. Adopting mixed methods, we use a merged sample from the Top500 world’s largest firms and the Global 100 Most Sustainable Corporations. Our quantitative analyses show that greater awareness of physical and other climate change opportunities is what sets superior performers apart, and that superior future sustainability performance is related to a firm’s stated awareness of these two types of opportunities. Qualitative content analysis of narrative disclosures confirm that superior performers provide more detailed description of climate change strategies that go beyond managing climate change risks. Our study contributes to the limited amount of research highlighting the value of proactively seeking opportunities rather than merely focussing on risk management.
ISSN:1573-0697
Contains:Enthalten in: Journal of business ethics
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.1007/s10551-017-3611-6