Framing responsibility: global firms’ environmental motivations

A recurring theme in international political economy is that responsibility for regulation is moving from the public to the private sphere, particularly from states to globally integrated markets. One of the clearest cases of this is multinational corporations (MNCs) increasingly adopting codes of conduct for the impact of their activities, including environmental impacts. MNCs also produce reports in which they present their environmental credentials. However, by analysing the reports of the most global MNCs, this chapter finds that the institutional basis of capitalist relations in firms’ home states is a key determiner of their environmental motivations. This reflects, and supports, the insights of the Varieties of Capitalism Approach. It suggests that, rather than conceiving of firms’ environmental motivations as global, even the most global firms view their environmental responsibilities through national lenses that reflect, and support, certain national institutional preferences over others.