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Business Responses to Climate Change Regulation in Canada and Germany: Lessons for MNCs from Emerging Economies

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Abstract

This article proposes a novel mapping of the complex relationship between business ethics and regulation, by suggesting five distinct ways in which business ethics and regulation may intersect. The framework is applied to a comparative case study of business responses to climate change regulation in Canada and Germany, both signatories to the Kyoto Protocol. Both countries represent distinctly different approaches which yield significant lessons for emerging economies. We also analyze the specific role of large multinational corporations in this process.

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Abbreviations

CCRES:

Canadian Coalition for Responsible Environmental Solutions

Ceres:

Coalition for Environmentally Responsible Economies;

CSR:

Corporate Social Responsibility

EU:

European Union

GE:

General Electric

GHG:

Greenhouse Gases

MNC:

Multinational Corporations

WTO:

World Trade Organization

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Acknowledgements

We wish to express our gratitude to the guest editor, Justin Tan, for his very helpful comments on earlier versions of the manuscript. Research assistance by Norman Tasevski is gratefully acknowledged.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Schulich School of Business, York University, Toronto, 4700 Keele Street, Toronto, M3J 1P3, Canada

    Burkard Eberlein & Dirk Matten

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  1. Burkard Eberlein
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  2. Dirk Matten
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Correspondence to Burkard Eberlein.

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Eberlein, B., Matten, D. Business Responses to Climate Change Regulation in Canada and Germany: Lessons for MNCs from Emerging Economies. J Bus Ethics 86 (Suppl 2), 241–255 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-009-0194-x

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