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- Convenors:
-
Kristoffer Ekberg
(Lund University)
Peder Roberts (University of Stavanger)
Ada Nissen (University of Oslo)
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- Chairs:
-
Niklas Olsen
(University of Copenhagen)
Kristoffer Ekberg (Lund University)
- Formats:
- Panel
- Streams:
- North & Nordicity
- Location:
- Room 17
- Sessions:
- Monday 19 August, -
Time zone: Europe/Helsinki
Short Abstract:
This panel aims to understand the how Nordic business, trade associations and affiliated actors have responded to environmentalism since the 1970s. Investigating the idea of the Nordic countries as forerunners, the panel will focus on the struggles and power dynamics in environmental governance.
Long Abstract:
Understanding the dynamics of environmental politics is crucial for coming to terms with the ecological and climate crisis developing globally today. One aspect to understand in the development and changing nature of environmental politics is the influence and role of business and corporations. While historical research concerning the rise of environmental governance, national and international environmental politics and regulation exists in most national contexts, research specifically on the corporate sphere and economics have only more recently caught the attention of scholars.( See: Bergquist 2019; Bergquist and David 2022; Huf, Sluga and Selchow 2022) Corporations and business interests have responded to, and been part in shaping both local, regional national and international politics and economic systems. (See: Bergquist and David 2022; Nissen 2022)
Within research on environmental politics, the Nordic countries are often heralded for their forerunner mentality (although not always shown in actual policies). (Anker 2020; Larsson Heidenblad 2021). Perhaps due to this, and some existing studies showing the relative compliance of industry in environmental governance (Bergquist Söderholm 2017) investigations on the kind of anti-environmentalism shown in the US (Boynton 2015; Brulle 2022) has remained scarce in the Nordic context. (for exceptions see: Linderström 2001; Friman 2002). This panel thus aims to understand how Nordic business, trade associations and affiliated actors have responded to environmentalism since the 1970s, both through opposition and compliance. Investigating the idea of Nordic countries as forerunners the panel will focus on the struggles and power dynamics in environmental governance.
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Monday 19 August, 2024, -Paper short abstract:
The paper examines the responses of the Finnish free-market think tank Elinkeinoelämän valtuuskunta (EVA) to emerging environmental concerns from its establishment in 1974 until the mid-1980s.
Paper long abstract:
My paper examines the responses of the Finnish free-market think tank Elinkeinoelämän valtuuskunta (EVA) to emerging environmental concerns from its establishment in 1974 until the mid-1980s. With the support of businesses, industry and employers' organisations, the think tank was instrumental in establishing free-market and neoliberal thinking in Finnish public debate and policy since the 1970s. Previous research has shown that after successfully countering the threat of organised labour and radicalised left-wing movements, and promoting a national labour market consensus centred on industrial competitiveness and modest wage policies, Finnish business and industrial associations found a new challenge in demands for environmental regulation, which they portrayed as collectivist. My paper shows that the archives offer a more nuanced picture of EVA's concerns about ecological and resource limits, which the think tank understood in the context of the energy crises of the 1970s as a serious obstacle to future economic growth and welfare state policies. I will examine these concerns, how they fit into the broader policies promoted by EVA and Finnish businesses, and why they faded in the 1980s in favour of unfettered growth policies and market-based welfare state reforms.
Paper short abstract:
The paper examines Finnish business organizations' responses to environmental questions. Among key themes were the conservation of water and forests and the preferred response of business was voluntary self-regulation by adopting environmental responsibility policies.
Paper long abstract:
The paper examines how two key organizations of Finnish business - the Confederation of Finnish Industries (TKL) and the think tank Council of Economic Organizations in Finland (EVA) - approached environmental questions in the 1970s and the 1980s. The study analyzes what the organizations viewed as the main challenges brought about by rising environmentalism and how they thought business should tackle them. Among the first key questions were the conservation of water and forests. In the early 1980s, anti-nuclear ideas were found especially worrisome, as Finnish business considered domestic nuclear power a vital source of energy.
The organizations were proactively proposing different voluntary measures and self-regulation, for example under the umbrella concept of ‘corporate social responsibility’, in order to avoid state intervention and binding environmental regulations. The latter were argued to ignore differences between businesses and thus threaten their profitability. This kind of voluntarism has been a common business response to basically all kinds of regulation issues. The paper pays attention to transnational contacts and debates that have influenced the ideas and strategies of Finnish business organizations, and how ideas have been selectively adapted to the Finnish context.
Paper short abstract:
This paper explores how Norwegian electrochemical and metallurgical companies reacted to critiques of marine pollution from the late 1960s to the early 1990s, and seeks to explain the measures taken to reduce industrial pollution of Norwegian fjords and coastal waters.
Paper long abstract:
This paper explores how Norwegian electrochemical and metallurgical companies reacted to critiques of marine pollution from the late 1960s to the early 1990s, and seeks to explain the subsequent measures taken to reduce industrial pollution of Norwegian fjords and coastal waters.
In order to explain the extensive pollution reduction in similar Swedish industries, business historians (Söderholm et al 2022; Bergquist & Söderholm 2011) have recently pointed to the combination of a trust-based bargaining system and concomitant pragmatic environmental licensing practices, and a green innovation system initiated by industrial companies. As a consensus-oriented political system with compromise-seeking public advisory committees (e.g., Hesstvedt 2020) and extensive industry representation in environmental governing bodies (Asdal 2015), one would expect these findings to apply to the Norwegian case as well.
The paper does find notable similarities with the Swedish case. As Uekötter (2009) indicated in studies of German and American air pollution control, however, trust-based cooperation between regulators and businesses often required the threat of less congenial alternatives. The paper therefore also explores why businesses would want to participate in trust-based environmental bargaining systems in the first place, and why companies in some cases even went “beyond compliance” (Rome 2020). Drawing on notions of public technologies (Trischler and Bud 2018) and sociotechnical imaginaries (Jasanoff and Kim 2009), the paper highlights 1) environmentalists’, labor unions’ and municipal governments’ involvement in technological choices, 2) managers’ and shareholders’ interpretations and anticipations of public opinion, and 3) bourgeoning visions of alternative industrial uses of the fjords, in particular aquaculture.
Paper short abstract:
This paper aims to understand the complex role of different businesses in changing the Danish recycling system for beverage containers from one based on the reuse of glass bottles to one based on recycling. Thereby, it sheds light on the entanglement of environmental politics and business interests.
Paper long abstract:
Studies of corporate environmentalism often take an outset in case studies of individual corporations. Instead, this paper investigates changes in an infrastructural system for recycling beverage containers and asks the question: What role did different corporations play in that process? Concretely, it focuses on the Danish recycling system for beer and soft drink containers and the so-called ‘Can War’ between Denmark and the EU. A war that ended a 20-year-long Danish ban on metal cans for beverages and changed the system from one based on the reuse of glass bottles to one based on recycling. The ‘war’ had at its core a discussion about free trade contra environmentalism. It involved both the Danish breweries with different and changing standpoints, foreign breweries calling the ban a trade barrier, the metal can industry, and the retailers handling the returned containers in their back premises. When Denmark gave up the ban due to the prospect of a lost EU court case – and thereby changed a system they claimed to be world-leading – the breweries in collaboration with retailers had already a new company ready to run the future recycling system. A company that recently celebrated its 20th anniversary as a monopoly. By analysing the ‘Can War’ with a special focus on the role of businesses, my paper generally traces a complex set of business responses to environmentalism and complex relations to environmental politics and its material output in the form of changing infrastructural systems.
Paper short abstract:
This paper explores the interplay between political decisions, national economic considerations, and commercial strategies related to the oil companies Statoil and Hydro’s investments in offshore wind power projects.
Paper long abstract:
In the last decades, the oil sector’s role in the green transition has been heavily debated. A recurrent argument in Norwegian discussions has been that much of the expertise present in the petroleum industry can be used to achieve a successful green transition. Both politicians and industry representatives have used the argument "develop, not dismantle" to defend continued investments in oil while highlighting the sector's potential to be a significant driving force toward a renewable energy system. This techno-optimism has been emblematic of political attitudes toward the oil industry’s role in Norway’s climate change adaptation. Shifting governments have pushed for electrification of offshore installations, carbon capture and storage solutions, and the development of offshore wind power.
In the oil sector, leading companies have followed up and developed offshore wind power technology as a response to politics, but also out of commercial and reputational self-interest. This development mirrors an international trend where major oil companies have increased their investments in renewables to transform themselves into energy firms.
With this backdrop as a starting point, this paper examines the evolving wind power initiatives in the Norwegian oil industry from around 2000 until today, with particular emphasis on Hydro and Statoil, which have been the companies at the forefront of these initiatives. The paper explores the interplay between political decisions, national economic considerations, and commercial strategies related to Statoil and Hydro’s wind power investments, and discusses the companies' motivations, and strategies as well as the challenges they encountered along the way.