Global Companies and the Environment: The Triumph of TNCs in Global Environmental Governance

Transnational corporations are important economic and increasingly also social actors. The chapter argues that, thanks to some transnational corporations, the discourse of what environmental problems are and how they have to be addressed has been radically changed: from being a limitation to growth, the environment has now become an opportunity for "green growth." This change has mainly been achieved by way of lobbying at the United Nations level. As a result, global companies have now triumphed over national and international visions of environmental regulation and have more or less taken over the work of the international organizations in matters of global environmental governance. However, rather than now taking on their responsibility, transnational corporations may well be tempted to use the "environment" to derive competitive advantages for themselves. This edition first published 2013