A paper that Daniel Nyberg and I have authored on the corporate translation of climate change has won the best critical paper award at the prestigious Academy of Management conference in Boston, USA.

Our paper focuses on how a growing political response to calls for dramatic decarbonization has been to downplay the role of emissions mitigation and emphasize local forms of climate change adaptation. We explore this issue through the example of corporate responses to the catastrophic coral bleaching of the Great Barrier Reef during 2016/2017 and the process of corporate political activity which encouraged a shift in public debate from climate mitigation to adaptation.

In particular, we identify how corporations create a hegemonic ‘common sense’ view of politically contested issues and how interests are politicized and enacted in public debate. Through these actions, corporate solutions and self-regulation become accepted as the logical response to the climate crisis. Despite the worsening impact of climate change, these corporate responses ensure the maintenance of business as usual.

The research for this paper was generously funded by the Sydney Environment Institute and the University of Sydney Business School.

You can view or download a copy of the paper here.