Description: This study explores how the EU Emissions Trading System (EU ETS) actually works on the ground affecting corporate climate strategies. It covers general sector responses as well as systematic comparative studies of companies across the sectors. The latter enables improved understanding of causal effects and the role of interaction between different policy instruments and other factors impacting corporate climate strategies. The study explores a broad set of mechanisms at play potentially linking the EU ETS to company climate strategies. These include how corporate norms of responsibility are affected by the EU ETS and how economic incentives provide opportunities for innovation. The book's main contribution lies in the systematic examination of corporate responses to the EU ETS from a broad empirical and analytical social science perspective covering companies in all main EU ETS sectors: electric power, oil, cement, steel and pulp and paper.
Review Quotes: 'With greenhouse gas emissions trading schemes emerging worldwide, this thorough and original analysis of the pioneering scheme of the European Union is certainly timely. By showing how the EU ETS affects the behaviour of the companies it targets, this volume provides useful lessons for climate policy design while adding valuable empirical insights to studies of corporate governance.' Harro van Asselt, Stockholm Environment Institute, Sweden 'Getting serious about climate change requires engaging business. This new volume offers the best and most systematic look at how companies have responded to Europe's emission trading scheme - the world's largest and most promising effort to control the emissions that cause global warming. The authors examine all the most important industrial sectors with skill and insight.' David G. Victor, Laboratory on International Law and Regulation, University of California at San Diego, USA