How Europe's risk regulations affect business

This paper argues that the business community in the European Union will continue to be affected by climate change policy.

The chapter explores how European climate change policy has affected businesses and their decisions:

• large businesses are able to influence the political process through lobbying, so that regulations may even give them a competitive edge
• small and medium-sized enterprises which generally suffer the negative impacts of climate policy
• businesses have responded to climate policy in various ways – by advocating the Kyoto Protocol, by investing in ‘renewable’ energies and by increasing their own efficiency

Some environmental campaigners have accused business of ‘greenwashing’ and are advocating new global rules on corporate accountability to force business to comply with their demands. But this paper argues that business is ‘an agent of change’ and believes that in the next 50 years, business will turn scientific developments in the energy and transport sectors into huge benefits for society. To do that though, requires:

• enabling business to innovate and produce goods and services in a manner which ensures that humanity’s footprint on the earth is ever-lighter
• companies to realise that consumers are also citizens - they care about protecting the environment, and want to feel secure that the activities of business are not undermining that goal

The author warns that it is consumers and small business who will suffer if European businesses are constantly lambasted and over-regulated.

This paper was published as a chapter in: Adapt or Die: The science, politics and economics of climate change, edited by Kendra Okonski