Climate Change: Challenging Business, Transforming Politics, Article Review Example

From this article I learned that private and public domains are so tied together with the connections between Government and economic sectors internationally, that determining who can act to address climate change is almost impossible to determine.  I believed that governments in industrialized countries agreed about the need to decrease greenhouse gasses and the problem was a matter of businesses who emit high levels of these gasses refusing to follow through due to a decreased ROI.  I was surprised to learn that there is no general agreement as to who might be best positioned to implement changes in such a way as to ensure compliance with agreed upon emission levels.  I wasn’t aware that, despite more than 20 years passing since a global agreement was reached to fight greenhouse gas related climate change that temperature continues to change more than 2^¡C, as agreed.

A quote from this article I found to be interesting was, “As Amanda Goodall shows, some of the premier publications in management including the Academy of Management Journal and Academy of Management Review did not have any article mentioning climate change of global warming (in title abstract or key word) from 1970 to 2006 (Goodall, 2008, p. 3).  Furthermore, out of a total number of 31,000 published articles in the top 30 management journals over that period, there are just nine articles that refer to climate change or global warming (Goodall, 2008, p. 3)” (Okereke, Wittenben, & Bowen, p.9).

I found this quote interesting because I would have thought that the subject of climate change would have been prominently discussed in academic circles than within the business community who were the primary culprits behind the problem.  It seems like those in academia are quick to call others to task when there is a problem, especially when it doesn’t seem to apply to academics.  Businesses would have had a financial motive to keep the problemsof industrial based anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases hidden.  It doesn’t seem those heading businesses in industrialized nations would have been the ones to try to transform management to control these emissions unless forced.

A question I still have and wonder about is how businesses can be expected to reduce greenhouse gas emissions while also being expected to continue meeting continuously increasing demand for goods and services world-wide.  I understand the need to decrease CO₂ emissions in particular, but without a commitment to helping businesses develop “green” manufacturing processes, I find it difficult to understand how businesses can be expected to meet both these requirements. In order generate new manufacturing methods to meet externally set criteria for greenhouse gas emissions, businesses find have to find a way to recoup the expense involved in development of new production methods while, at the same time, increase production to meet expanded demand.

Since businesses in the same industry are competing for the same customers, they would not naturally be inclined to share technological knowledge.  It seems that new technology developed to decrease greenhouse gas emission would lead to a similar situation as what is found in pharmaceutical companies.  Businesses would potentially feel the need to increase the cost of goods and services to cover the cost of research and development to the point that only a small segment of consumers could afford their products. While it appears that Government and community leader expect businesses to do the right thing morally, businesses operate to make a profit and remain competitive.  Without providing help in technology development or underwriting such development, expecting business to just do the right thing without focusing on their bottom line doesn’t seem realistic to me.

References

Chukwumerije, O., Wittneben, B. & Bowen, F. (2012). Climate Change: Challenging Business,

Transforming Politics.  Business & Society, 51(1) 7 –30.