An Investigation of the Conditions under Which Corporates Are Likely to Reshape Their Practices to Reverse Environmental Degradation

Concerning reports of the state of the planet and our natural resources have become increasingly familiar with many authors reporting increasing levels of unsustainable extraction. In considering this complex problem, the corporate sector has been identified by some as the 'single most influential group' (Robinson, 2012) to catalyse the shifts required to secure the future of the planet (Rose and Colchester, 2004). The reasons that have been offered in support of this claim include the fact that much of the land on the planet is controlled by corporations, the income of single corporations is often larger than many governments and that business, especially big business, and the corporate sector plays a pivotal role in controlling supply chains (Rose and Colchester, 2004). In this paper we took an optimistic stance in response to this challenge and argued that engaging business to address environmental risks is not only crucial to solving many of the key environmental challenges humans face but that businesses will be willing, given certain enabling conditions, to reshape their businesses. The latter has been argued because businesses failing to do so will increase their own vulnerability to risks that will affect their competitiveness and profitability by increasing their exposure to a variety of crucial liabilities such as operational, supply chain, regulation, reputation and financial risks (UN Global Compact and IUCN, 2012). In what followed, we explored the nature of the enabling conditions to bring about the former outcome and describe how they might be facilitated. The research findings presented are based on interviews and focus groups conducted across the supply chain of the South African food and beverage sector. This focused on the results of two case studies of businesses, who have developed a partnership with WWF South Africa to explore possibilities for creating more environmentally sustainable practices. One of these case studies focused on the fishing industry and the other on the beverage industry. The fisheries case study in turn focused on two change initiatives: the Southern African Sustainable Seafood Initiative (SASSI) and the Responsible Fisheries Alliance (RFA). The second explored the responses of a major beverage company – SAB Miller – as it recognises and responds to water boundaries. These studies form part of a broader programme of research on pivotal institutions – that is institutions thought to be well-placed to lever significant shifts within economies with respect to anthropogenic earth system engagements-within the public, private and …