Multinational economic actors, particularly corporations, play a defining role in the response to the climate change or warming debate and the emerging scientific consensus. This book describes, explains, and predicts how multinational firms will rise to the multiple challenges posed by global climate issues and the organizational and behavioral various responses of the international corporate community. It focuses on three core research and learning objectives. Firstly, it develops the core idea that multinational enterprises cannot implement meaningful sustainability initiatives without an appropriate governance system and corporate culture. Building on this notion, it addresses the question of environmental sustainability across select industry sectors, such oil and banking. Finally, drawing on a diverse range of contributing experts, it presents select best practices such as the opportunities arising from smart technologies implementation to achieve symbiotic industrial relationships, directed particularly towards the ecological environment of these firms’ transborder operations and global reach.

The Role of Multinational Enterprises in Supporting the United Nations’ SDGs is an exploration of the place of the private sector in implementing select Sustainable Development Goals. Beyond the abundant literature published by the United Nations and journal articles, there are few book-length treatments of the unique role that multinationals play as facilitators of goal implementation and agents of change. This volume aims to stimulate debate and research on MNEs’ best practices, fleshing out many of the seventeen goals through the lens of corporate strategic choices.

Biological threats like SARS and natural disasters like the tsunami in Indonesia have devastated entire regions, and quickly exhausted budgetary resources. As the field of environmental health continues to evolve, scientists and others must focus on gaining a better understanding of the links between human health and various environmental factors, and on creating new paradigms and partnerships needed to address these complex environmental health challenges facing society. Global Environmental Health in the 21st Century: From Governmental Regulations to Corporate Social Responsibility: Workshop Summary discusses the role of industry in environmental health, examines programs designed to improve the overall state of environmental health, and explores how governmental and corporate entities can collaborate to manage this industry. Stakeholders in both the public and private sectors are looking for viable solutions as the complexity of societal problems and risks associated with management and varying regulatory standards continue to increase. Global Environmental Health in the 21st Century draws critical links and provides insight into the current shape of global environmental health. The book recommends expanding environmental management systems (EMS) to encompass a more extensive global network. It also provides a complete assessment of the benefits and costs resulting from implementation of various environmental management systems.

Climate change represents the most important environmental challenge of our time. Organisations are responding by implementing governance processes and taking action to reduce their own emissions and the emissions from their supply chains and value chains. Yet very little is known about how these efforts contribute to reducing greenhouse gas emissions (if, indeed, they make any substantive contribution at all) or about how they might be harnessed to deliver more ambitious reductions in emissions. This book explains when and where particular forms of governance intervention – including internal governance processes and external governance pressures – are likely to impact climate change. From this analysis, it offers practical proposals on the climate policy frameworks that need to be in place to facilitate or accelerate changes in corporate behaviour. The book is truly global: it focuses on the world’s 25 largest retailers (including Walmart, Tesco, Carrefour, Sears and Aldi) and is based on detailed interviews with senior managers from these corporations, and with key global and national NGOs, corporate responsibility experts, politicians and regulators. These interviews provide clear insights into how external governance pressures and actions (public opinion, regulation, incentives) interact with internal governance conditions (management systems and processes, corporate policies, board/CEO leadership) to change and shape corporate actions on climate change and, in turn, the climate change impacts of these corporations. This book can be used as a core reference for any courses dealing with corporate governance and business strategy, in particular those relating to climate change and to environmental management more generally. It is also of relevance to business practitioners, public policy makers, investors and NGOs interested in ensuring that companies play a constructive role in the transition to a low-carbon economy.

The convergence of corporate social responsibility (CSR), corporate strategy, and public policy has emerged as a critical domain in contemporary business. The fundamental premise of corporate social responsibility is the obligation a company bears to simultaneously address and tend to the multifaceted needs of its clients, workforce, shareholders, communities, and the environment. The key to unlocking the dual potential of generating both positive social impact and corporate value is found in this delicate balance. Examining a wide array of empirical evidence, Strategies and Approaches of Corporate Social Responsibility Toward Multinational Enterprises establishes the tangible linkages between social responsibility initiatives and competitive advantages, offering invaluable insights for organizations aspiring to attract top-tier talent and bolster brand reputation. Delving into the nuances of corporate strategy, it elucidates the distinction between business strategy and corporate strategy, underscoring the significant influence of CEO decisions on stakeholders directly or indirectly associated with the organization. Designed to resonate with diverse audiences, including corporate sectors, private organizations, banks, universities' faculty and students, industrialists, and researchers, this book offers a roadmap for embracing and implementing novel approaches to CSR for multinational enterprises. Employing strategic business models that prioritize sustainability and responsive strategies, it heralds a new era of corporate excellence and organizational growth.

This book advances an innovative, multi-jurisdictional argument for the necessity of company law reform to reorient companies towards environmental sustainability.

Acting in a socially-responsible manner has become a crucial success factor for many international firms due to the highly complex, competitive, and volatile global environment in which they operate. This book will contribute new ideas, contemporary knowledge, and original research to the area of socially-responsible international business, and offers challenging directions for future research. Topic covered range from global environmental influences on acting in a socially-responsible way; foreign buyer reactions to responsible business and international market targeting to development of socially-responsible international business strategies.

Guided by the overarching question “how and why does the emerging economy context matter for business?”, this collection brings together key contributions of Klaus Meyer on multinational enterprises (MNEs) competing in, and originating from, emerging economies. The book also explores how outward investment strategies contribute to building internationally competitive MNEs.

Multinational enterprises (MNEs) provide both a fundamental risk to and an opportunity for climate change mitigation. The climate ambitions of MNEs will affect the environmental performance of countries around the world. As a leading actor, proactive MNEs can impose sustainability standards or encourage green technology transfers that, in some cases, could affect millions of producers and accelerate the climate transition. However, obstructive MNEs may equally hold back any progress to reduce a country's emissions via inaction or by actively resisting, obstructing, or lobbying against change. The objective of this report is to study the effect of MNEs on climate change. Toward this goal, the report reviews the latest available data, conducts new empirical analysis, and summarizes pioneering literature. The report answers four key questions related to the relationship between MNEs and climate change: 1) What effect do MNEs currently have on climate change, both through their own activities and through the emissions of their broader supply chains?; 2) How do MNEs shape the potential transfer of green technologies to domestic firms, and how do different types of interactions with MNEs stimulate such technology transfers?; 3) How committed are leading MNEs currently to transitioning their supply chains to net-zero emissions by 2050, and do they have long-, medium-, and short-range strategies to realize this?; 4) What types of policies can influence MNEs' effects on climate change?