Keywords

Introduction

In this chapter, we reflect on desk-based research carried out to support the Place-based Climate Action Network’s (PCAN) project’s ambitions to establish impactful climate commissions in cities across the UK (PCAN, 2020). These aim to act as an independent body of place-based stakeholders (situated actors invested in the future of a location) working to accelerate action on climate change in their ‘place’. Using the current compositions of the three PCAN Climate Commissions (Belfast, Edinburgh and Leeds) as our starting point, in this chapter, we engage with the question of how existing understandings of the private sector might be broadened to more holistically capture the diverse perspectives and opportunities that the sector might offer to the work of city climate commissions.

Researchers on the subject of climate change and business often tout the private sector as the vehicle through which to realise ambitious climate targets via economic incentives and regulation (Averchenkova et al., 2020; Stern, 2007). It is a robust argument to state that the private sector is a powerhouse of economic, logistical and innovative momentum which (in theory) has the capacity to act on climate change, if appropriately harnessed (Hawken, 2017). As such, and acknowledging the private sector’s omnipresence in industrialised society, city-based climate commissions have identified the private sector as a potential source of influential individuals and organisations (PCAN, 2020). The question of who gets a seat at the table, however, will be place-specific and therefore arguably in need of a more nuanced approach than simply championing the involvement of the ‘private sector’. Indeed, we ask here, who exactly is it that represents the ‘place’-based interests of the private sector?

Reflecting on our critical and conceptual engagement with this question, we suggest here that climate commissions approach the private sector with a degree of granularity, rather than perceiving it as a collection of independent businesses clustered into one spatial monolith. To encourage more effective fostering of local climate action on the part of the business environment, we hope to describe some of the benefits that climate commissions could gain by understanding and integrating a multiplicity of a city’s stakeholders from the wider private sector ‘ecosystem’. Including a more eclectic range of local actors in place-based climate commissions would offer new perspectives, knowledge and influence to draw from. In this chapter, we identify and discuss some specific examples of place-based stakeholders from the private sector, that have thus far been overlooked by PCAN commissioner recruitment and reflect on the insight they might provide in enhancing local climate action.

In the following section, we present the output of a research project which sought to distil, from existing academic literature, a comprehensive framework for capturing the diverse and varying set of competitive and economic benefits, or motivators, for private sector organisations to take action against climate change. Whilst this framework yields numerous theoretical insights and further avenues of research, its use in this chapter is practical—as a device to identify new actors with something to offer to the ambitions of climate commissions. In the subsequent sections of the chapter, we connect the identified private sector motivators for climate action from the framework to the sorts of stakeholders of a locality that are able to speak to these motivations at the place-based scale. In doing so, the framework enables the identification of (and offers recommendations on) actors who might be considered when deciding on the composition of place-based climate commissions. This is based on their capacity to mobilise different agencies with local private sector ecosystems. In conclusion, we offer some further (more speculative) thoughts on the relationship between climate action, place and the private sector.

Mapping Business Motivations for Climate Action

The research project on which this chapter is based took the form of a comprehensive desk-based, ‘Integrated literature review’ (Torraco, 2005) carried out by the chapter’s lead author between April and August 2020.Footnote 1 The motivation to create a synthesised conceptual framework emerged out of a necessity to tie together a largely disparate body of private sector and climate action literature in order to move debates beyond the ‘usual suspects’ of the field (Evans, et al., 2017; Hoffman, 2016; Schaltegger, et al., 2012). Figure 10.1 captures the output of this process as a new framework for approaching the topic of private sector motivations for taking action against climate change.

Fig. 10.1
figure 1

A framework of motivators for private sector action on climate change (*SBM—Sustainable Business Model)

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Each individual motivator presented in Fig. 10.1 thematically captures a cluster of economic and strategic benefits for private sector action on climate change from within the academic literature. Having grouped these into 5 conceptual clusters (or ‘lenses’), and beginning with explicitly financial motivations, in what follows we connect the identified clusters to potential actors who (a) have the potential to offer much needed insight into the nature of this motivator in a particular city or place, and (b) were overlooked during initial recruitment to, or have not yet been adopted throughout, PCAN Climate Commissions.

Financial Lens: Chamber of Commerce

Despite a noteworthy presence of numerous individual business memberships in PCAN Climate Commissions, there is yet to be a representative whose remit encompasses the totality of the local business ecosystem. Whilst such a perspective might not exist with regard to the question of climate change, it is possible to identify organisations and groups who do have an explicit relationship with the ‘place-based’ dimension of business activity. Chambers of Commerce, for example, offer such a perspective, acting as an advocate for the interests of large quantities of businesses in very particular places (Chamber of Commerce, 2020). Rather than merely being the local manifestation of otherwise national or even global corporations, chambers of commerce are tethered intimately to the locations to which they pertain, offering an established channel of communication through which these businesses can potentially be mobilised into coordinated climate action (Verbovskii & Kosov, 2016).

Regarding mobilisation, chambers of commerce have an established rapport, confidence and familiarity among their network of businesses, which would perhaps generate representational equity of businesses in discussions and decision-making, offering greater buy-in for the commission objectives. Furthermore, they potentially tap into a wide set of SME organisations who may have larger (cumulative) carbon footprints than individual large corporations and are more likely to have local supply chain networks which contribute to the city’s footprint.

External Lens: Residents’ Representatives

Within the framework presented in Fig. 10.1, external motivators for businesses to engage in climate action consist of the economic and strategic benefits of a positive reputation derived from their climate engagement (Hoffman, 2016). In a place-based context, we therefore propose that one of the most important local external actors to businesses is the consumers in that city. As such, we suggest there is merit to the idea of involving local citizens in climate commissions, perhaps even ones for whom addressing climate change is not seen as a governance priority. As with the chamber of commerce example above, engagement with local businesses and their customers seems like an impactful strategy in the pursuit of buy-in for commission aims and objectives. Moreover, the merits of offering greater representation representing to a place’s residents extend beyond the context of the private sector, in which this chapter is based, and can offer social and emotional perspectives which complement economic purposes for protecting cities from climate consequences.

Beyond achieving greater inclusiveness, the addition of residents’ representation to climate commission compositions would ensure the entire spectrum of city actors, from governance bodies at the top to individual residents at the bottom, is accommodated in a unified city transition. Such an approach is also merited on the basis of some of the recognised failings of previous ‘place-based’ sustainability initiatives. For instance, the flagship policy of the 2010 UK Conservative Party, termed ‘Big Society’, fostered an inorganic sense of community due to the absence of local public input (Walker & Corbett, 2013). Similarly, the grassroot Transition Towns network, whilst generating social acceptance among residents, failed to make substantial transformations of localities as they failed to engage governing bodies to facilitate systematic change (Feola & Nunes, 2014). Indeed, the Leeds PCAN Climate Commission has noted that their own Citizen’s Jury has offered constructive contributions through publicly announced recommendations, which have also furthered engagement, awareness and facilitated personal behaviour change among involved citizens (Leeds Climate Commission, 2019). Moreover, the Croydon Climate Crisis Commission also invites members of its local Citizen’s Jury to sit on the commission as commissioners, offering the core PCAN commissions another opportunity to learn how to engage their own Citizen’s Juries.

Internal Lens: Local Trade Union Chapters

In contrast to external motivators, internal motivators are economic and strategic benefits of climate action that are realised within the business, namely employee productivity. Contemporary literature has identified that employees working for businesses that are proactive in their climate action derive a sense of heightened purpose, which has shown to positively correlate with greater productivity (Bocken & Geradts, 2020). As employees are responsible for the functional day-to-day operation of businesses, we identify the local workforce as a vital segment of the private sector, who warrant consideration for involvement in climate commissions. Whilst in the previous section we discussed the role of residents as consumers who offer a substantial collective agency in terms of pro (and anti-) environmental behaviour within the private sector, here we reflect on the extent to which more formal representation for employment-related issues offers another route to place-based buy-in for commissions.

By including local trade union chapters in their make-up, climate commissions would likely benefit from the established, vast network of employees across many industries within their local region that trades unions offer. Their cooperation could present the opportunity for established trades union networks to be used as a channel of communication to many residents of a city. Moreover, the pragmatic nature of trades unions, coupled with their knowledge of mobilising action, would possibly lend useful insight into climate commissions who aspire to muster a meaningful low-carbon transition. Furthermore, for an equitable transition to a low-carbon society to be achieved, the welfare of employees who work in high-emissions industries must be considered (Newell & Mulvaney, 2013). If a city hopes to achieve net-zero climate targets, businesses that are no longer viable in a green future must be reformed or made obsolete (Figueres & Rivett-Carnac, 2020). As such, trades unions could play a vital role in ensuring the fair transition of employees to new industries that are aligned with climate targets.

Legal Lens: Devolved Powers

In the context of place-based climate action, the main legal motivator for climate action that was identified in Fig. 10.1 was regulatory preparedness. The research found that businesses that have taken climate measures that go beyond expected climate regulation enjoy strategic and economic benefits to businesses that are continuously reacting to conform to new regulation (Bocken & Geradts, 2020). As actors must adapt in accordance with local regulation in order to be allowed to engage in business activities (Hoffman, 2016), the legal lens indicates that decision-making entities of local business regulation warrant a discernible segment in the private sector, as they play a significant role in steering it.

In a city context, local city councils are identified as senior governing bodies who often drive ambitious climate targets, such as the Edinburgh City Council (another place with a local PCAN Climate Commission) commitment to make the city climate neutral by 2030 (Edinburgh City Council, 2020). Though it is acknowledged that city council representatives are often already climate commission members (indeed in Edinburgh the council was a founding partner of its local commission), the emphasis is predominantly on the council’s own sustainability strategies. In addition to this, we suggest that commissions might prioritise legal experts who would offer climate commissions with a stronger grasp of the policy levers currently at the disposal of local authorities. As regularly advocated for by the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities (COSLA), there is an urgent need to devolve greater decision-maker power to local government on issues which impact sustainability and climate change (Davidson, 2019). There is an opportunity for climate commissions to join (or indeed bolster) the call for such changes.

Risk Mitigation Lens: Land and Real Estate Owners

Climate change risks in the context of the private sector can be broadly divided into two categories: physical risks and market risks (Cisar et al., 2011). Physical risks are the danger of physical damage to a business’ assets due to climate change’s consequences via extreme weather events. Alternatively, market risks emerge from the shifting business landscape prompted by climate change, which presents economic and competitive risks to businesses that do not transition effectively to align with a climate conscious market.

Regarding place, the physical risks are contextually nuanced—not every city will be subject to the same changing weather patterns—and the market risks vary from actor to actor within a place’s business ecosystem (Figueres & Rivett-Carnac, 2020). In both cases, land and real estate owners (whose properties do not have the same footloose quality that capital benefits from) offer a potentially captive audience for serious conversations on addressing climate change. In addition to the risk of physical damage from extreme weather, COVID-19 has offered recent evidence of the way in which commercial spaces, office buildings and other urban land uses can lose significant value due to environmentally induced market shifts (Chernick et al., 2020). The risk mitigation lens, therefore, identifies landowners as an instrumental segment of the private sector. As there are many landowners within a city, we suggest that landowners with the largest portfolios are considered for involvement in climate commissions, as well as those that own land or businesses that will require significant reform to align with climate targets, and those at greatest imminent risks of climate change.

Conclusion

The purpose of this short chapter was to illustrate how a better understanding of the diversity actors in the private sector can pave the way for a more nuanced engagement with place-based stakeholder representation on climate commissions. By getting beyond an over-simplified narrative for the ‘private sector’ to play a role in combatting climate change, it is possible to think through how new and emerging city climate commissions can position themselves in ways that allow the diverse and varying resources at the disposal of situated private actors to be brought to bear on the climate challenge. The chapter drew on a comprehensive framework of private sector motivations to act on climate change in order to recommend stakeholders of a place who might offer important routes to the mobilisation of private sector resources in the pursuit of commission aspirations.

The financial lens showed the benefits that chambers of commerce would yield by offering a connection to businesses already embedded in ‘place’; the external lens recommended a residents’ representative to give a voice to consumers in the city; the internal lens recommended the participation of local chapters of trades unions, who may mobilise and represent the local workforce and ensure a just transition; the legal lens recommended incorporating intimate knowledge of the levers of power in governing the private sector currently at the disposal of local authorities; and finally, the risk mitigation lens proposed the addition of land and real estate owners given their vulnerabilities to a changing climate.

Though this book chapter has outlined various actors that we believe would offer valuable private sector representation on commissions, it does not aim to suggest what roles these new commissioners might assume. Rather, we wish to demonstrate that the setting-up of a city-based climate commission, as an attempt to institutionalise place-based experimental governance, warrants nuanced consideration of who it is that represents the private sector in ways that can best mobilise its diverse resources at the local scale. There is a need for close engagement with the unique setting of any given city, particularly with regard to the relationship (or lack of it) between private businesses and the political, institutional and cultural nature of the places in which they are located. The introduction of some of the diverse actors presented in this chapter (actors who might not be the most obvious starting point for taking action on climate change) could allow a more intimate and practical engagement with the private sector, and ultimately generate meaningful climate action at the city-scale.