How Climate Change became a Business Risk: Analyzing Non-State Agency in Global Climate Politics

Climate change is widely acknowledged as a key business risk. Companies around the globe are taking action to mitigate their carbon emissions, develop climate-friendly products and services, and prepare for the negative impacts of climate change for their operations. Financial investors, on their part, are becoming more concerned about business responses to climate change and begin to demand concrete risk management strategies. In this context an increasing number of private initiatives are seeking to change business behaviour in a more sustainable direction. Key instruments used are governance by disclosure. This paper explores the agency of nonstate actors in manufacturing climate change into a key business risk, a development that enabled the use of disclosure-based governance mechanisms in global climate politics. © 2012 Pion and its Licensors.