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By Nina Szewczyk

Is protesting climate change a waste of time? Many would agree, as they do not believe that their individual actions could change rich CEO’s minds about corporate policies. If that’s the case, why do corporations keep promising drastically cutting their emissions and contributing to a sustainable future?

As the effects of climate change are becoming more visible with every year, corporations are making commitments to reducing their negative impact on the environment. Surprisingly, it happens at the same time as the emergence of climate change movements taking over a big chunk of the public debate. Are the praises given to the corporations for cutting their emissions in the right place, or should the social movements started by regular citizens and scientists thank themselves for the change in corporate policies?

In 2018 over a hundred global corporations, including the McDonald’s Corporation, Procter & Gamble Company and Unilever plc, have committed to reduce their emissions of harmful gases and pollution by at least 15% in the next 10 years and in some cases by 100% in the next 30 years. Considering that scientists have been warning us about the effects of pollution on the climate since the 1970s it took them many years to make those decisions. For a long period of time not much has been done about climate change until recent events such as the Paris Agreement of 2016 and the annual UN Climate Change Conferences on which in the recent years Greta Thunberg has influenced youth strikes and movements all over the western world and possibly beyond. The growing popularity of climate change talk could be considered significant in influencing drastic commitments coming from institutions rooted in prioritising profit over the environment.

It is impossible for the marketers and researchers working in corporations to ignore the overall impact excessive consumption has on our planet. Production of food is responsible for approximately one fourth of all the greenhouse gas emissions. There is a growing social awareness around the topic of climate crisis which they should have been aware of years ago when the first strikes against global warming started. Yet it appears that corporations only apologize when it is profitable for them, when the political and social climate changes, and people are not willing to buy products with palm oil or in plastic packaging anymore and they loudly and clearly demand change.

According to a study by Oxfam, in 2014 the ten biggest corporations from the food and beverage sector were only focused on changing policies about emissions which did not impact their profits too much and not the ones where a much more significant amount of emissions was located. Kellogg was described as being one of the worst companies on that list regarding the implementations of emission cutting policies. After being exposed like that, already a year later they committed to a Science-based target of emissions in which they included restrictions on the section of emissions which they ignored up to that point, setting a target of reducing 20% of absolute value chain emissions by 2030, and a long-term target of 65% by 2050. This is just one example, but on that list we will find over a hundred global corporations which joined the science-based target commitment in the years 2015-2020 to cut emissions, which aligns with the rising popularity of climate change in the public debate.

It might be, that Kellogg needed to change after being called out on their harmful impact. In that way they also adapted to the situation of protests against environment pollution and new government policies regarding climate change in the countries of their target audience. By doing that, they maximize their revenue as the up to date changes keep them relevant therefore stable on the market. It would indicate that those corporations are only making commitments to reduce their emissions because otherwise they would lose money. Even if they somehow cared and felt the moral obligation to prevent further climate damage, corporations put thinking about profit as their top priority which means that if none of the scientific proofs and social movements emerged, they would most likely never consider changing their policies.

Social movements create changes in how corporations operate, which is even admitted in a review about Contentiousness of Markets by Brayden G. King and Nicholas A. Pearce, where they claim that “radical changes in markets are often preceded by movements advocating alternative conceptions of exchange”. We could argue, that politics plays a more significant role in this case, since governments have power over corporations and they impact each other in various ways. However, changes in politics often start on the streets, as seen in this case, as only about 40 years since the first protests we see significant changes in policies. If it’s not a coincidence that social movements impact policies of global companies, then protesting and empowering each other is worth it, and makes us partially responsible for corporate policies of sustainability.

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