Sullivan, R and Gouldson, A (2016) Comparing the Climate Change Actions, Targets and Performance of UK and US Retailers. Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, 23 (3). pp. 129-139. ISSN 1535-3958
Abstract
It is often held that the UK has been something of a leader in its response to climate change, and that the USA has been more of a laggard. Whilst much of this debate relates to government policy, in this paper we consider whether this is true when it comes to corporate action on climate change. We use the retail sector to explore this question. This sector is important because of its own greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and because of the emissions it influences through its supply chains and value chains. On the basis of extensive reviews of corporate reports and other publically available data, we find that companies in the UK are some way ahead of their US counterparts in terms of the actions they are taking (in particular in relation to their willingness to focus on their supply-chain-related emissions), the ambition of the emission reduction targets that they are setting for themselves, and (while acknowledging the difficulties in making direct performance comparisons) the rates of improvement in their energy consumption and GHG emissions. We therefore conclude that at least some of the wider claims about the relative performance of the UK and the USA on climate change are mirrored in the manner in which corporations are responding to climate change.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment. This is the peer reviewed version of the following article: Sullivan, R., and Gouldson, A. (2016) Comparing the Climate Change Actions, Targets and Performance of UK and US Retailers. Corp. Soc. Responsib. Environ. Mgmt., 23: 129–139, which has been published in final form at http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/csr.1364. This article may be used for non-commercial purposes in accordance with Wiley Terms and Conditions for Self-Archiving. Uploaded in accordance with the publisher's self-archiving policy. |
Keywords: | corporations; GHG emissions |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Leeds |
Academic Units: | The University of Leeds > Faculty of Environment (Leeds) > School of Earth and Environment (Leeds) > Sustainability Research Institute (SRI) (Leeds) |
Funding Information: | Funder Grant number ESRC ES/LK006576/1 |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Publications |
Date Deposited: | 10 Jun 2016 15:16 |
Last Modified: | 01 Nov 2016 19:18 |
Published Version: | http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/csr.1364 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Wiley |
Identification Number: | 10.1002/csr.1364 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:90741 |