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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.