Candid climate efforts or empty promises?

Abstract

Most policies for mitigating climate change are to date orchestrated top-down, yet have not been as effective as anticipated. Recently, non-state actors (NSAs) are being considered as complementary contributors to climate change mitigation, allowing for a more bottom-up, decentralized approach. NSAs, as the name suggests, are not affiliated with the government and can range from municipalities to corporations and NGOs. NSAs are increasingly joining climate agreements such as the Science-Based Targets initiatives (SBTi).. SBTi have the potential to decrease CO2 by 2.7 GtCO2e per year, in case at least 2000 companies join. However, as NSAs commit on a voluntary basis, their actions are non-enforceable; thereby creating uncertainty, as NSAs can be steered by different institutions on different levels. By studying three cases of SBTi committed food and beverage companies, the goal of this research is to unravel the institutional interrelations and complexities that influence the participation and commitment of these companies. We use the Institutional Network analysis (INA) approach that builds on the Institutional grammar. Our study of both formal and informal institutions and their interactions reveals that the main mechanisms steering members are socio-economic constructs, such as the pressure from the larger society that in turn affect a company’s reputation.