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Beyond Compliance: The Origins of Corporate Interest in Sustainability

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 February 2020

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Abstract

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, many U.S. business leaders resolved to go “beyond compliance” with environmental regulations. Manufacturers sought to become more eco-efficient by reducing how much waste they produced per unit of output. Some companies developed greener products. However, the new commitment to sustainability only went so far: Few executives fundamentally rethought their business models. What drove the rise of corporate concern about sustainability, and why did those drivers fall short? The incentives to become greener were partial. They affected some companies more than others, and they only rewarded efforts to reduce some environmental impacts. By analyzing the limits of corporate interest in sustainability in the late 1980s and early 1990s, this article offers fresh insight into the challenge of greening the economy.

Type
Article
Information
Enterprise & Society , Volume 22 , Issue 2 , June 2021 , pp. 409 - 437
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2020. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Business History Conference. All rights reserved.

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References

Bibliography of Works Cited

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Jones, Geoffrey. Profits and Sustainability: A History of Green Entrepreneurship. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2017.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jundt, Thomas. Greening the Red, White, and Blue: The Bomb, Big Business, and Consumer Resistance in Postwar America. New York: Oxford University Press, 2014.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
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Kraft, Michael E., Stephan, Mark, and Abel, Troy D.. Coming Clean: Information Disclosure and Environmental Performance. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2011.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Layzer, Judith A. Open for Business: Conservatives’ Opposition to Environmental Regulation. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2012.Google Scholar
Magdoff, Fred, and Foster, John Bellamy. What Every Environmentalist Needs to Know About Capitalism: A Citizen’s Guide to Capitalism and the Environment. New York: Monthly Review Press, 2011.Google Scholar
Makower, Joel. The E-Factor: The Bottom-Line Approach to Environmentally Responsible Business. New York: Times Books, 1993.Google Scholar
Makower, Joel. Strategies for the Green Economy: Opportunities and Challenges in the New World of Business. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2009.Google Scholar
Makower, Joel, and Business for Social Responsibility. Beyond the Bottom Line: Putting Social Responsibility to Work for Your Business and the World. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1994.Google Scholar
Manheim, Jarol B. The Death of a Thousand Cuts: Corporate Campaigns and the Attack on the Corporation. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 2001.Google Scholar
McInerny, Francis, and White, Sean. The Total Quality Corporation: How 10 Major Companies Turned Quality and Environmental Challenges to Competitive Advantage in the 1990s. New York: Truman Talley Books/Dutton, 1995.Google Scholar
McKibbin, Bill. The End of Nature. New York: Random House, 1989.Google Scholar
Moore, Jason W. Capitalism in the Web of Life: Ecology and the Accumulation of Capital. New York: Verso, 2015.Google Scholar
Orsato, Renato J. Sustainability Strategies: When Does It Pay to Be Green? Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009.Google Scholar
Piasecki, Bruce W. Corporate Environmental Strategy: The Avalanche of Change Since Bhopal. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1995.Google Scholar
Piasecki, Bruce W., Fletcher, Kevin A., and Mendelson, Frank J.. Environmental Management and Business Strategy: Leadership Skills for the 21st Century. New York: John Wiley, 1999.Google Scholar
Reinhardt, Forest L. Down to Earth: Applying Business Principles to Environmental Management. Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 1999.Google Scholar
Reinhardt, Forest L., and Vietor, Richard H. K.. Business Management and the Natural Environment: Cases & Text. Cincinnati, OH: South-Western College Publishing, 1996.Google Scholar
Rome, Adam. The Genius of Earth Day: How a 1970 Teach-In Unexpectedly Made the First Green Generation. New York: Hill and Wang, 2013.Google Scholar
Romm, Joseph J. Lean and Clean Management: How to Boost Profits and Productivity by Reducing Pollution. New York: Kodansha International, 1994.Google Scholar
Rubinstein, Daniel Blake. Environmental Accounting for the Sustainable Corporation: Strategies and Techniques. Westport, CT: Quorum Books, 1994.Google Scholar
Savitz, Andrew W. with Karl Weber, . The Triple Bottom Line: How America’s Best Companies Are Achieving Economic, Social, and Environmental Success—and How You Can Too. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2006.Google Scholar
Schmidheimy, Stephan, with the Business Council for Sustainable Development. Changing Course: A Global Business Perspective on Development and the Environment. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1992.Google Scholar
Schmidheimy, Stephan, and Zorraquin, Federico J. L., with the World Business Council for Sustainable Development. Financing Change: The Financial Community, Eco-Efficiency, and Sustainable Development. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1996.Google Scholar
Schneider, Stephen H. Global Warming: Are We Entering the Greenhouse Century? San Francisco: Sierra Club Books, 1989.Google Scholar
Sheffi, Yossi with Blanco, Edgar. Balancing Green: When to Embrace Sustainability in a Business (and When Not To). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2018.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shrivastana, Paul. Greening Business: Profiting the Corporation and the Environment. Cincinnati, OH: Thomson Executive Press, 1996.Google Scholar
Smart, Bruce, ed. Beyond Compliance: A New Industry View of the Environment. Washington: World Resources Institute, 1992.Google Scholar
Speth, James Gustave. The Bridge at the End of the World: Capitalism, the Environment, and Crossing from Crisis to Sustainability. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2008.Google Scholar
Stead, W. Edward, and Stead, Jean Garner. Management for a Small Planet: Strategic Decision Making and the Environment. Newbury Park, CA: Sage, 1992.Google Scholar
Weart, Spencer R. The Discovery of Global Warming. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2003.Google Scholar
Wilkins, Lee. Shared Vulnerability: The Media and American Perceptions of the Bhopal Disaster. New York: Greenwood Press, 1987.Google Scholar
Willard, Bob. The Sustainability Advantage: Seven Business Case Benefits of a Triple Bottom Line. Gabriola Island, BC: New Society Publishers, 2002.Google Scholar
Aronczyk, Melissa. “Public Relations, Issue Management, and the Transformation of American Environmentalism.” Enterprise & Society 19 (December 2018): 836 –863.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Berghoff, Hartmut. “Shades of Green: A Business-History Perspective on Eco-Capitalism.” In Green Capitalism? Business and the Environment in the Twentieth Century, edited by Berghoff, Hartmut and Rome, Adam, 13 –32. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2017.Google Scholar
Bergquist, Ann-Kristin. “Business and Sustainability.” In The Routledge Companion to the Makers of Global Business, edited by da Silva Lopes, Teresa, Lubinski, Christina, and Tworek, Heidi J. S., 546 –563. New York: Routledge, 2020.Google Scholar
Bergquist, Ann-Kristin. “Renewing Business History in the Era of the Anthropocene.” Business History Review 93 (Spring 2019): 3 –24.Google Scholar
Elmore, Bartow J. “The Commercial Ecology of Scavenger Capitalism: Monsanto, Fossil Fuels, and the Remaking of a Chemical Giant.” Enterprise & Society 19 (March 2018): 153 –178.Google Scholar
Hoffman, Andrew J. “The Evolving Focus of Business Sustainability Education.” In EarthEd: Rethinking Education on a Changing Planet, edited by Institute, Worldwatch, 279–288. Washington: Worldwatch Institute, 2017.Google Scholar
Laszlo, Chris. “Sustainability for Strategic Advantage: The Shift to Flourishing.” In Corporate Stewardship: Achieving Sustainable Effectiveness, edited by Mohrman, Susan Albers, James, O ’Toole, and Lawler, Edward E. III, 94 –111. Sheffield, UK: Greenleaf, 2015.Google Scholar
Rome, Adam. “DuPont and the Limits of Corporate Environmentalism.” Business History Review 93 (Spring 2019): 75 –99.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rome, Adam. “The Ecology of Commerce: Environmental History and the Challenge of Building a Sustainable Economy.” In Green Capitalism? Business and the Environment in the Twentieth Century, edited by Berghoff, Hartmut and Rome, Adam, 3–12. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2017.Google Scholar
Rosen, Christine Meisner, and Sellers, Christopher C., “The Nature of the Firm: Towards an Ecocultural History of Business.” Business History Review 73 (Winter 1999): 577–600.Google Scholar
AdweekGoogle Scholar
Arthur D. Little PRISMGoogle Scholar
Business WeekGoogle Scholar
Chemical and Engineering NewsGoogle Scholar
Chronicle of Higher EducationGoogle Scholar
Entertainment WeeklyGoogle Scholar
FortuneGoogle Scholar
GarbageGoogle Scholar
GreenBizGoogle Scholar
New York TimesGoogle Scholar
Rolling StoneGoogle Scholar
TimeGoogle Scholar
U.S. News & World ReportGoogle Scholar
U.S. Green Building Council BlogGoogle Scholar
Anderson, Ray C. Mid-Course Correction: Toward a Sustainable Enterprise: The Interface Model. White River Junction, VT: Chelsea Green, 1998.Google Scholar
Anderson, Ray C. with White, Robin. Business Lessons from a Radical Industrialist. New York: St. Martin’s Griffin, 2011.Google Scholar
Andrews, Richard N. L. Managing the Environment, Managing Ourselves. 2nd ed. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2006.Google Scholar
Bansal, Pratima, and Hoffman, Andrew J., eds. The Oxford Handbook of Business and the Natural Environment. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2012.Google Scholar
Berghoff, Hartmut, and Rome, Adam, eds. Green Capitalism? Business and the Environment in the Twentieth Century. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2017.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bowen, Frances. After Greenwashing: Symbolic Corporate Environmentalism and Society. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2014.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Buchholz, Rogene A., Marcus, Alfred A., and Post, James E.. Managing Environmental Issues: A Casebook. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1992.Google Scholar
BusinessWeek and World Resources Institute. The Environment: Corporate Stewardship and Business Opportunity in the Decade of Global Awakening. New York: Journal Graphics, 1991.Google Scholar
Cairncross, Frances. Costing the Earth: The Challenge for Governments, the Opportunities for Business. Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 1993.Google Scholar
Caradonna, Jeremy L. Sustainability: A History. New York: Oxford University Press, 2014.Google Scholar
Carroll, Archie B., Lipartito, Kenneth J., Post, James E., and Werhane, Patricia H.. Corporate Responsibility: The American Experience. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2012.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Carson, Patrick, and Moulden, Julia. Green Is Gold: Business Talking to Business About the Environmental Revolution. Toronto, CA: HarperBusiness, 1991.Google Scholar
Chouinard, Yvon, and Stanley, Vincent. The Responsible Company: What We’ve Learned from Patagonia’s First 40 Years. Ventura, CA: Patagonia Books, 2012.Google Scholar
Coddington, Walter. Environmental Marketing: Positive Strategies for Reaching the Green Consumer. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1993.Google Scholar
Coll, Steve. Private Empire: ExxonMobil and American Power. New York: Penguin, 2013.Google Scholar
Dauvergne, Peter, and Lister, Jane. Eco-Business: A Big-Brand Takeover of Sustainability. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2013.Google Scholar
Delmas, Magali A. with Colgan, David. The Green Bundle: Pairing the Market with the Planet. Stanford, CA: Stanford Business, 2018.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ditz, Daryl Ranganathan, Janet, and Banks, R. Darryl, eds. Green Ledgers: Case Studies of Corporate Environmental Accounting. Washington: World Resources Institute, 1995.Google Scholar
Doyle, Jack. Trespass Against Us: Dow Chemical and the Toxic Century. Monroe, ME: Common Courage Press, 2004.Google Scholar
Dumaine, Brian. The Plot to Save the Planet: How Visionary Entrepreneurs and Corporate Titans Are Creating Real Solutions to Global Warming. New York: Crown Business, 2008.Google Scholar
Dunaway, Finis. Seeing Green: The Use and Abuse of American Environmental Images. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2015.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Easterbrook, Gregg. A Moment on the Earth: The Coming Age of Environmental Optimism. New York: Viking, 1995.Google Scholar
Ehrenfeld, John R., and Hoffman, Andrew J.. Flourishing: A Frank Conversation about Sustainability. Stanford, CA: Stanford Business, 2013.Google Scholar
Elkington, John. Cannibals with Forks: The Triple Bottom Line of 21st Century Business. Oxford, UK: Capstone, 1999.Google Scholar
Elkington, John with Burke, Tom. The Green Capitalists: Industry’s Search for Environmental Excellence. London: Victor Gollancz, 1987.Google Scholar
Esty, Daniel C., and Winston, Andrew S.. Green to Gold: How Smart Companies Use Environmental Strategy to Innovate, Create Value, and Build Competitive Advantage. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2006.Google Scholar
Fedrizzi, Rick. Greenthink: How Profit Can Save the Planet. Austin, TX: Disruption Books, 2015.Google Scholar
Frankel, Carl. In Earth’s Company: Business, Environment, and the Challenge of Sustainability. Gabriola Island, BC: New Society, 1998.Google Scholar
Gladwin, Thomas N. Building the Sustainable Corporation: Creating Environmental Sustainability and Corporate Advantage. Washington: National Wildlife Federation Corporate Conservation Council, 1992.Google Scholar
Harrison, E. Bruce. Going Green: How to Communicate Your Company’s Environmental Commitment. Homewood, IL: Business One Irwin, 1993.Google Scholar
Hawken, Paul. The Ecology of Commerce: A Declaration of Sustainability. New York: HarperBusiness, 1993.Google Scholar
Hoffman, Andrew J. Carbon Strategies: How Leading Corporations Are Reducing Their Climate-Change Footprint. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2007.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hoffman, Andrew J.. From Heresy to Dogma: An Institutional History of Corporate Environmentalism. Expanded edition. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2001.Google Scholar
Humes, Edward. Force of Nature: The Unlikely Story of Wal-Mart’s Green Revolution. New York: HarperBusiness, 2011.Google Scholar
Jones, Geoffrey. Profits and Sustainability: A History of Green Entrepreneurship. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2017.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jundt, Thomas. Greening the Red, White, and Blue: The Bomb, Big Business, and Consumer Resistance in Postwar America. New York: Oxford University Press, 2014.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Klein, Naomi. This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. The Climate. New York: Simon and Schuster, 2014.Google Scholar
Kraft, , Michael E., and Kamieniecki, Sheldon, eds. Business and Environmental Policy: Corporate Interests in the American Political System. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2007.Google Scholar
Kraft, Michael E., Stephan, Mark, and Abel, Troy D.. Coming Clean: Information Disclosure and Environmental Performance. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2011.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Layzer, Judith A. Open for Business: Conservatives’ Opposition to Environmental Regulation. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2012.Google Scholar
Magdoff, Fred, and Foster, John Bellamy. What Every Environmentalist Needs to Know About Capitalism: A Citizen’s Guide to Capitalism and the Environment. New York: Monthly Review Press, 2011.Google Scholar
Makower, Joel. The E-Factor: The Bottom-Line Approach to Environmentally Responsible Business. New York: Times Books, 1993.Google Scholar
Makower, Joel. Strategies for the Green Economy: Opportunities and Challenges in the New World of Business. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2009.Google Scholar
Makower, Joel, and Business for Social Responsibility. Beyond the Bottom Line: Putting Social Responsibility to Work for Your Business and the World. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1994.Google Scholar
Manheim, Jarol B. The Death of a Thousand Cuts: Corporate Campaigns and the Attack on the Corporation. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 2001.Google Scholar
McInerny, Francis, and White, Sean. The Total Quality Corporation: How 10 Major Companies Turned Quality and Environmental Challenges to Competitive Advantage in the 1990s. New York: Truman Talley Books/Dutton, 1995.Google Scholar
McKibbin, Bill. The End of Nature. New York: Random House, 1989.Google Scholar
Moore, Jason W. Capitalism in the Web of Life: Ecology and the Accumulation of Capital. New York: Verso, 2015.Google Scholar
Orsato, Renato J. Sustainability Strategies: When Does It Pay to Be Green? Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009.Google Scholar
Piasecki, Bruce W. Corporate Environmental Strategy: The Avalanche of Change Since Bhopal. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1995.Google Scholar
Piasecki, Bruce W., Fletcher, Kevin A., and Mendelson, Frank J.. Environmental Management and Business Strategy: Leadership Skills for the 21st Century. New York: John Wiley, 1999.Google Scholar
Reinhardt, Forest L. Down to Earth: Applying Business Principles to Environmental Management. Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 1999.Google Scholar
Reinhardt, Forest L., and Vietor, Richard H. K.. Business Management and the Natural Environment: Cases & Text. Cincinnati, OH: South-Western College Publishing, 1996.Google Scholar
Rome, Adam. The Genius of Earth Day: How a 1970 Teach-In Unexpectedly Made the First Green Generation. New York: Hill and Wang, 2013.Google Scholar
Romm, Joseph J. Lean and Clean Management: How to Boost Profits and Productivity by Reducing Pollution. New York: Kodansha International, 1994.Google Scholar
Rubinstein, Daniel Blake. Environmental Accounting for the Sustainable Corporation: Strategies and Techniques. Westport, CT: Quorum Books, 1994.Google Scholar
Savitz, Andrew W. with Karl Weber, . The Triple Bottom Line: How America’s Best Companies Are Achieving Economic, Social, and Environmental Success—and How You Can Too. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2006.Google Scholar
Schmidheimy, Stephan, with the Business Council for Sustainable Development. Changing Course: A Global Business Perspective on Development and the Environment. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1992.Google Scholar
Schmidheimy, Stephan, and Zorraquin, Federico J. L., with the World Business Council for Sustainable Development. Financing Change: The Financial Community, Eco-Efficiency, and Sustainable Development. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1996.Google Scholar
Schneider, Stephen H. Global Warming: Are We Entering the Greenhouse Century? San Francisco: Sierra Club Books, 1989.Google Scholar
Sheffi, Yossi with Blanco, Edgar. Balancing Green: When to Embrace Sustainability in a Business (and When Not To). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2018.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shrivastana, Paul. Greening Business: Profiting the Corporation and the Environment. Cincinnati, OH: Thomson Executive Press, 1996.Google Scholar
Smart, Bruce, ed. Beyond Compliance: A New Industry View of the Environment. Washington: World Resources Institute, 1992.Google Scholar
Speth, James Gustave. The Bridge at the End of the World: Capitalism, the Environment, and Crossing from Crisis to Sustainability. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2008.Google Scholar
Stead, W. Edward, and Stead, Jean Garner. Management for a Small Planet: Strategic Decision Making and the Environment. Newbury Park, CA: Sage, 1992.Google Scholar
Weart, Spencer R. The Discovery of Global Warming. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2003.Google Scholar
Wilkins, Lee. Shared Vulnerability: The Media and American Perceptions of the Bhopal Disaster. New York: Greenwood Press, 1987.Google Scholar
Willard, Bob. The Sustainability Advantage: Seven Business Case Benefits of a Triple Bottom Line. Gabriola Island, BC: New Society Publishers, 2002.Google Scholar
Aronczyk, Melissa. “Public Relations, Issue Management, and the Transformation of American Environmentalism.” Enterprise & Society 19 (December 2018): 836 –863.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Berghoff, Hartmut. “Shades of Green: A Business-History Perspective on Eco-Capitalism.” In Green Capitalism? Business and the Environment in the Twentieth Century, edited by Berghoff, Hartmut and Rome, Adam, 13 –32. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2017.Google Scholar
Bergquist, Ann-Kristin. “Business and Sustainability.” In The Routledge Companion to the Makers of Global Business, edited by da Silva Lopes, Teresa, Lubinski, Christina, and Tworek, Heidi J. S., 546 –563. New York: Routledge, 2020.Google Scholar
Bergquist, Ann-Kristin. “Renewing Business History in the Era of the Anthropocene.” Business History Review 93 (Spring 2019): 3 –24.Google Scholar
Elmore, Bartow J. “The Commercial Ecology of Scavenger Capitalism: Monsanto, Fossil Fuels, and the Remaking of a Chemical Giant.” Enterprise & Society 19 (March 2018): 153 –178.Google Scholar
Hoffman, Andrew J. “The Evolving Focus of Business Sustainability Education.” In EarthEd: Rethinking Education on a Changing Planet, edited by Institute, Worldwatch, 279–288. Washington: Worldwatch Institute, 2017.Google Scholar
Laszlo, Chris. “Sustainability for Strategic Advantage: The Shift to Flourishing.” In Corporate Stewardship: Achieving Sustainable Effectiveness, edited by Mohrman, Susan Albers, James, O ’Toole, and Lawler, Edward E. III, 94 –111. Sheffield, UK: Greenleaf, 2015.Google Scholar
Rome, Adam. “DuPont and the Limits of Corporate Environmentalism.” Business History Review 93 (Spring 2019): 75 –99.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rome, Adam. “The Ecology of Commerce: Environmental History and the Challenge of Building a Sustainable Economy.” In Green Capitalism? Business and the Environment in the Twentieth Century, edited by Berghoff, Hartmut and Rome, Adam, 3–12. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2017.Google Scholar
Rosen, Christine Meisner, and Sellers, Christopher C., “The Nature of the Firm: Towards an Ecocultural History of Business.” Business History Review 73 (Winter 1999): 577–600.Google Scholar
AdweekGoogle Scholar
Arthur D. Little PRISMGoogle Scholar
Business WeekGoogle Scholar
Chemical and Engineering NewsGoogle Scholar
Chronicle of Higher EducationGoogle Scholar
Entertainment WeeklyGoogle Scholar
FortuneGoogle Scholar
GarbageGoogle Scholar
GreenBizGoogle Scholar
New York TimesGoogle Scholar
Rolling StoneGoogle Scholar
TimeGoogle Scholar
U.S. News & World ReportGoogle Scholar
U.S. Green Building Council BlogGoogle Scholar