Corporate Response to Climate Change: An African Emerging Market Experience

Annotation

The threat of climate change on businesses are economies is becoming more evident by the day. Businesses, especially in the developing countries have been accused of not doing enough regarding adaptation and mitigation strategies for climate change. In this study, we investigate corporate response to climate change in the context of African emerging markets. Using survey data collected from self-administered questionnaires and descriptive analysis, results indicated, among other things, that most African companies have used proactive climate change adaptation strategy and choice of strategy is determined by regulatory requirements, competitive pressure, stakeholder pressure, and the surge in best practices.

Keywords

Adaptation, Climate Change, Descriptive methods, Emerging market, Mitigation, Africa

Introduction

Climate change remains an area of interest to concerned individuals, businesses, governments, and academics over the last few decades. As the impact of climate change continues to become more obvious on our social life, there is the need for a comprehensive strategy to cushion its effect and reverse the damages caused to the environment. To enhance global economic sustainability, the United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development calls on countries to strengthen their cooperation in mitigating climate change impacts by bridging the gap between science and policy (Ogaji-Asokoro 2020a). Though, the impact of climate change varies across nations and industries (Ogaji-Asokoro 2020b; Zolnikov 2019), the Kyoto Protocol 1997 emphasized the need for all companies to cut carbon dioxide and greenhouse gas emission in the atmosphere to have a more sustainable economy. For long businesses, especially energy and manufacturing companies, have been identified as an important agent in the fight against global climate crisis. However, since climate change increases environmental risk, businesses can contribute their quota by employing more environmentally friendly processes in their operations. No wonder there have been increased pressure on companies to increase disclosure regarding the detection, identification, measurement, and sustainability risk mitigation within company strategy, policy, and business practices (Bernardi, Venuti, & Bertello 2019). Increasingly businesses have seen the need to employ mitigation and adaptation strategies for climate change. Few studies have investigated climate change response by African companies (Ogaji-Asokoro 2020a; Devkota et al. 2017). This article seeks to provide answer to the question: What is the response to climate change adapted by companies in African emerging markets?

Climate change poses environmental threats including excessive rains, flood, drought, hurricanes, air pollutions, and increased precipitations (Zolnikov 2019). Since African economies thrive on primary productions, such as agriculture, severe climate situations can hurt business and governments. Increased globalization, which brings about cross-border investments, has led to the recognition of Africa as an important partner in the fight against climate change. Countries such as Nigeria are witnessing massive greenhouse gas emissions that if not checked will undermine the global effort to reduce climate change impacts. In 2019, the Nigerian Federal Ministry of Environment reported that the total greenhouse gas emission will reach 232,000 Gigagram (Gg) by the year 2030 as compared to 108,000 Gg in 1995. In addition, the country is estimated to lose between 6 to 30 percent of their GDP, which is 100 to 460 billion dollars, to adverse climate effect by the year 2050 (Anabaraonye, Chukwuma, & Eriobu 2019). These statistics reveal the need to adopt climate change strategies by the Nigerian companies to have a more sustainable economy. Thus, developing economies must not be left out in the global effort to combat climate change impacts.

Mendelsohn (2012) observed that African economies will be more severely affected by climate change impact because agriculture and other climate-sensitive sectors are the major contributors to their Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Also, being close to the equator, the continent will experience warmer temperatures that could worsen in the future. In addition, because African countries have weaker markets, poor institutions and infrastructure, and weak governments, it will be difficult to devise effective climate change programs. At corporate level, the developing companies have often been ignored in the policy discussions about climate change, because their total greenhouse gas emission are assumed to be insignificant. However, it is important for companies in Africa to employ climate change strategies in their production process as they become more relevant in the global market.

Adaptation and mitigation are two related concepts that have been discussed in the strategic management literature. Adaptation relates to the adjustments made in response to climate change, whereas mitigation refers to deliberate actions to minimize exposure to change (Anabaraonye, Chukwuma, & Eriobu 2019; Beermann 2011). Often the two concepts are used interchangeably to refer to actions taken to cushion the effect of change. Though few studies explored corporate strategies in response to climate change, Beermann (2011) identified five major types of responses: proactive, reactive, anticipatory, planned, and autonomous. Usually, the approach employed depends on the perceived threat of climate change and the cost and benefit of implementing a course of action (Bui & de Villiers 2017). For example, companies will adopt a proactive strategy when perceived threat is high, anticipatory strategy when threat is perceived to be moderate, and stable strategy supports perceived low threat. In addition to cultural factors, regulatory pressure, industry norms and best practices and management’s perception of climate change determine the strategy. Thus, the mitigation and adaptation strategies are expected to vary significantly across firms, industries, and countries.

Two theories are relevant in understanding corporate response to climate change: resource-dependency theory and Triple Bottom Line (TBL) model. The resource-dependency theory holds that firms gain competitive advantage by employing valuable and difficult to imitate resources. In addition, a company can achieve sustainability goals by adopting a proactive strategy in transforming environmental resources into competencies (Barney 1991). The TBL model emphasized the integration of three corporate outcomes – financial, social, and environmental – to understand a company’s overall performance. These three areas have been treated in isolation in academic research while they are in fact interconnected (Kajikawa 2008). Thus, corporate sustainability should be perceived beyond achieving economic goals but also improving on social and environmental responsibility.

Previous studies that have assessed climate change response by organizations offered exploratory and conceptual perspectives regarding the need for mitigation and adaptation (Winn et al. 2011). Other studies have examined the sustainability of the adaptation strategies (Agyei 2016) and climate change strategies using a perception-based analysis (Devkota et al. 2017). Some studies have investigated climate change practices in the ski (Scott & Geoff 2006) and tourism industry (Saarinen & Kaarina 2006; Hambira et al. 2013). While these studies offer important insights into climate change practices and strategies, they typically were conducted in the context of developed countries. Thus, little is known about the climate change adaptation strategies by companies on the African continent. In addition, studies have shown that cultural factors, institutional, and regulatory settings play a role in climate change strategies by corporations (Bui & de Villiers 2017). This means that the findings of previous studies conducted in the light of developed nations may not apply to the African emerging markets. Nevertheless, Ogaji-Asokoro (2020a) used a descriptive approach to explain climate change strategies by manufacturing firms in Nigeria. Overall, the build-up to corporate response to climate change and activism has been slow in Africa and there is an increasing pressure to act from a broad range of stakeholders. Although, companies’ climate responses focus primarily on measures that have a short-term cost-saving effect, a thorough understanding of climate risk in the context of African emerging markets is rare.

This paper, therefore, extends the work of Ogaji-Asokoro (2020a) by drawing a larger sample size and including more firms from other sectors as the units of analysis, thereby providing a better understanding of corporate practices. The objective of the paper is to assess the climate change adaptation strategies in the context of an African emerging market (Nigeria). Nigeria is relevant in this study because it is the largest economy in Africa and offers a good representation of sub-Saharan African countries. The contributions of this paper are two-fold. One, the paper attempts to explain the response to climate change in the context of African emerging markets – the countries often neglected in climate change discussions. Thus, we offer a new evidence in that is useful in the global effort to combat the adverse effects of climate by corporations. Second, to the best of our knowledge, this is the first empirical evidence on climate change adaptation practices by companies from various sectors of an economy. Therefore, the paper offers insights into the general practice of business organizations and is thus relevant for policy formulation, especially in the developing countries such as Nigeria.

Literature Review

This section explains the conceptual model, discusses the concepts of climate change adaptation and mitigation, and details a review of related literature.

Conceptual Model

Discussion of climate change strategies can be viewed from the lenses of resource-based theory and the TBL model. The resource-based theory maintains that corporate resources that are valuable and difficult to imitate by other industry rivals are a source of competitive advantage (Hart 1995). Based on this model, a company may achieve competitive advantage by adopting a proactive strategy if it can transform environmental resources into competencies. Given environmental constraints, a firm requires specific resources (assets under its control) and capabilities (capacity deployment in the use of resources) (Barney 1991). Therefore, to gain a sustainable long-term performance, a company must develop and utilize resources in its natural environment to achieve objectives. According to Busch (2011) development and deployment of natural resource to achieve competitive advantage can be realized when there is a strong relationship between issues of natural environment and organizational behavior. Overall, the approach suggests that an investment in climate change adaptation should be perceived as valuable resources that can help in achieving competitive advantage.

The TBL model also offers a good basis for understanding climate change strategies from sustainability perspective. The theory emphasized the important of three interconnected areas of business (financial, social, and environmental), which are often treated in isolation in academic literature and practice (Kajikawa 2008). The three aspects, which are financial, social, and environmental are often referred to as people, profit, and planet. Though, each of the three areas have traditional climate-related disciplines (Schweikert, Espinet & Chinowsky 2017), practical solutions to climate-related challenges can be found through integration of these three areas. Thus, the TBL model encourages companies to not only improve their economic performance but to be socially and environmentally responsible as well. Extant literature has shown that adopting the TBL by companies provides at least three advantages: increased revenue and market share, increased employee retention, and increased community support (Schweikert Espinet, & Chinowsky 2017). Despite the relevance of the TBL model, it suffers a major limitation; how to objectively quantify the three areas (financial, social, and environmental) using the same metric. Nevertheless, the model offers useful insight into understanding how a company can utilize its financial and nonfinancial resources to achieve competitive advantage.

Climate Change Adaptation and Mitigation

Adaptation refers to the range of adjustments undertaken to respond to current and future predicted changes (Beermann 2011). The adjustments are usually in the form of changes in business operations and processes. Mitigation refers to deliberate actions aimed at minimizing the adverse effect of exposure to change (Saarinen et al. 2012). The difference between adaptation and mitigation is that while adaptation focuses on the direct response after the event (change) may have taken place, mitigation entails pre-event measures. In other words, while adaptation is a reactive approach, mitigation is proactive and may involve technological and regulatory shifts in response to predicted climate change. Adaptation and mitigation strategies are interlinked. Nevertheless, Beermann (2011) explained that while adaptation provides private benefit to the firm in the form of improved technology in business processes, mitigation provides public benefits such as the reduction of greenhouse gas emission, adequate waste disposal, and efficiency in energy consumption. Linnenluecke, Griffiths and Mumby (2015) observed that at the firm-level, internal and external factors determine the climate strategies that businesses adopt. They further explained that internal factors concern management perception of climate threat, nature of business and firm capabilities. External factors involve regulatory requirements, legal and institutional framework, economic incentives, best practices, and industry norms. Scholars have advocated that adaptation and mitigation should be taken together and seen as complements to achieve better firm results. For this reason, in the context of this study, the words adaptation and mitigation are used interchangeably to mean deliberate actions taken to reduce the impact of climate change.

Corporate strategies in response to climate change has been categorized into five groups namely stable, proactive, reactive, anticipatory, and creative. Stable strategy involves little action by management because climate change impact on the business is perceived to be low (Bui & de Villiers 2017). Thus, the stable strategy is likely to be employed by companies located in societies where there is little awareness and appreciation of climate change impact. Although, there is increasing awareness among business owners in emerging economies, it is likely that businesses will prefer to adopt the stable approach because it does not require spending organizational resources. Proactive strategy involves careful planning for climate change impacts and the strategy is usually adopted when perceived threat is high. This strategy is increasingly becoming popular among companies because it leads to competitive advantage (Stead & Stead 2008) by identifying marketing opportunities and consumer needs, and then implementing strategies to match these needs. Contrary to the proactive strategy, companies that employ the reactive approach do not perceive environmental impacts as strategic and hence they do not see the need to incorporate climate impact policies in their processes. The reactive strategy is often adopted by companies that perceive change impacts as moderate or low. Bui and de Villiers (2017) observed that the reactive strategy is popular among large corporations because it involves immediate response requiring additional adjustments to several changes and risks. While the anticipatory strategy involves participating in the regulatory process (Ogaji-Asokoro 2020a) when threat is perceived to be low or moderate, the companies that use creative approach view climate change impacts as strategic because it poses severe threats to the business long term survival (Amram et al. 2016; Beermann 2011). In addition to exploiting opportunities associated with carbon rating, companies that employ creative strategy typically implement climate-friendly processes such as green product development, green marketing, and replacement of current asset base. From the types of strategies identified, it is obvious that perceived threat is a major determinant of the corporate approach to climate change.

Review of Related Literature

There has been a fair attempt by previous studies to assess corporate response to climate change in different countries and industries. An early study by Saarinen and Tervo (2006) found that Finnish nature-based companies employ reactive strategy to short-term changes in market variabilities. The respondents maintain that climate change will not have an immediate significant impact on their firms. In the same vein, Hambira et al. (2013) found that companies in Botswana tourism industry do not employ proactive strategy because adverse effect of climate change on their businesses is perceived to be low. Also, using a focused group interview, Scott and Boyle (2007) found that adaptations to climate change are targeted reducing climate variability risks as they are not new business strategies. These studies confirm that the choice of climate change strategy is determined by the extent of change threat.

Further, previous studies have investigated climate change impacts and strategies in specific industries. In the agricultural sector, Fleischer, Mendelsohn, and Dinar (2011) found that specific climate strategies include bundling crops and supporting technologies. Amran et al. (2016) found that changing sowing methods and planting of trees such as dates are the two common strategies adopted by firms. In the energy sector Weinhofer and Hoffmann (2010) reported that carbon reduction, carbon compensation, and carbon independence are commonest methods adopted by firms in different countries. Also, using archival evidence and in-depth interviews Bui and de Villiers (2017) that companies in the electricity sector in New Zealand used different climate change strategies at different times, typically moving from stable to anticipatory, proactive, creative, and reactive. The study also found that regulatory uncertainties affect corporate response to risk management and that firms do not adopt proactive strategy because of these uncertainties. A study by Busch (2011) found that strategic climate integration, management’s possession of climate impact knowledge, and operational flexibility determine corporate approach to climate change. Other studies found that climate change strategies differ across industries because of the difference in the severity of adverse climate impacts on individual sectors (Ruokonen & Temmes 2019). In addition, Ruokonen and Temmes (2019) found that in the long term the ability to effectively implement strategies depends on firm’s ability to address customer’s environmental concerns, tackling global megatrends, and internal efficiency of operations.

In a recent study, Ogaji-Asokoro (2020b) examined the relationship between climate change adaptation, business sustainability strategies, and competitive advantage in a sample of manufacturing firms in Nigeria. The study found that though adaptation to climate change is a recent development among the sample firms, these firms have implemented specific strategies, including reduction in water and energy consumption, and reducing packaging environmental effects. Though, this study provided insight into corporate practices in response to climate change, the study used a sample of less than 200 respondents drawn from manufacturing companies only. In the present study, we included more respondents and added the oil and gas industry in the analysis. The oil and gas industry is important in the policy discussion about climate change because of their level of greenhouse gas emissions. More so, since the oil and gas industry comprises of large corporations with international presence and organizational resources and capabilities, they are likely to provide important insights into the corporate response strategies in African emerging markets.

From the review of literature, it is apparent that prior studies used data from specific industries such as energy, tourism, and agriculture. These studies are also country and region specific. To the best of our knowledge, besides the study of Ogaji-Asokoro (2020b), no research was conducted to assess the corporate response to climate change in the context of African emerging economies such as Nigeria. Again, most previous studies have used qualitative approach and thus allowing for high degree of subjectivity in the analysis.

Methodology

This study uses survey and descriptive research methods to assess the climate change strategies by companies. The survey method is used collect data from target respondents by way of issuing self-administered questionnaires. The method is widely used in assessing the opinion of respondents about social phenomena. We use the descriptive statistics in answering the research question “What are the response to climate change employed by companies in emerging markets in Africa?” Mean and frequency of responses are the descriptive statistics used for the analysis.

The study uses companies that have head offices in the Nigerian Federal Capital territory Abuja as the population. We use a convenience sampling technique because at the point of collecting the data, the country is experiencing second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic and social distancing is strictly enforced by the government. Convenience sampling is a non-probability technique employed when the researcher considers factors such as proximity, availability, and willingness as criteria for selecting respondents (Cantele & Zardini 2018). Previous studies have employed the convenience sampling technique when factor such as accessibility, availability at a given time, geographical proximity, or the willingness to participate (Etikan, Musa, & Alkassim 2016). The convenience sampling is relevant for this study because the data were collected during the COVID-19 pandemic when lockdown was enforced in many states on the federation. It was possible to retrieve data from only those that were willing to fill the self-administered questionnaires, which was done under strict compliance to the COVID-19 regulations.

The sectoral distribution of the firms in the sample is agriculture, consumer goods, industrial goods, healthcare and pharmaceutical, mining, oil and gas, and conglomerates (diversified). The financial sector such as banks and insurance were excluded because we believe that their business operations have less impact on the climate and the industry is less likely to be severely affected by climate change. We use close-ended questionnaires as the data collection instrument. The close-ended questionnaire is a popular instrument and is convenient for coding, tabulation, and analysis (Dawson 2007). For clarity, we attached a paper consisting of brief explanation of terms that could be ambiguous to the respondents. Such terms include proactive, reactive, planned, anticipatory, and autonomous climate change adaptation strategies.

The questionnaires were adopted from previous studies (Beermann 2011; Ogaji-Asokoro 2020a) with little modification to suit the research objective. Expert opinions were sought from academics about the content, adequacy, suitability, and arrangement of the items. We performed validity and reliability tests of questionnaires in a pilot study using 80 respondents from different business. All the test results indicated that the instruments are valid and reliable. Lastly, 500 questionnaires were administered out of which 317, representing 63% response rate, were retrieved and used for analysis. The data were collected between July and October 2020. In the next section, we present the results of the study.

Results and Discussion

In this section, we present the result of the research in the following order: demographic profile and descriptive analysis of data.

Table 1 above reveals that 234 (73.8%) of the respondents were male while the remaining 83 (26.2%) females. The result shows that the business workforce of Nigerian companies is dominated by male workers. The table also shows that 49 respondents (15.5%) work in the agricultural sector, 86 (27.1%) work in the consumer goods sector, 73 (23%) are employees of the industrial goods firm, and 32 (10.1%) in healthcare and pharmaceutical sector. 25 (7.9%), 19 (6.0), and 33 (10.4%) of the respondents are from mining, oil and gas, and conglomerate, respectively. This result is a fair representation of the Nigerian business environment as most firms operate in the consumer goods sector. Lastly, 187 (60%), 75 (23.7%), and 55 (17.3%) of the respondents, respectively are in the strategic (top-level), middle-level (tactical) and low-level (operational) management positions. Strategic managers are expected to be better informed about climate change impacts on business operations and the firm’s strategies towards addressing climate impacts.?

The data are analyzed in Table 2 below

Table 2 above shows that 95% of the respondents said that their organizations employed climate change strategies and 79.4 % are of the view that their firms have employed formal strategies. The result also indicates that some companies (21.6%) have used adaptation strategies that are informal, which could be firm-specific. Thus, some companies’ choice of strategy is based on an ad hoc decision of strategic managers rather than based on formal corporate policy. Interestingly, while 42% of the respondents believe that climate change negatively affects their businesses negatively, 72% believe it has adverse effect, and 55% see climate change as having no effect at all on their companies. Regarding the health effect of climate change, majority of respondents (57.3%) perceive climate change as having negative effect and, surprisingly, 73% opine that it has no effect at all. Regarding business and health impacts, the results indicate divergent opinions on climate change demonstrating that firms in Africa are yet to fully appreciate the threat of climate change. The total percentage is more than 100 since respondents were given the option to check more than one option. Overall, the result highlights that the companies understand their vulnerability to climate crisis and as such they may have the incentive to adapt to it. This is because there is a positive relationship between vulnerability and the scope of adaptation measures (Weinhofer & Hoffmann 2010).

The results in Table 2 also shows that majority of the companies (29%) have employed adaptation strategies for the past 15 years, suggesting corporate policies round climate impact is relatively new. About 19% of the respondents said that their companies have implemented climate policies in less than five years and only 24% adapted the strategies for the past 16 years. The result indicates African companies are only recently coming to terms with the need to incorporate climate policies in their short-term and long-term strategies. When asked about the climate change adaptation strategy employed by their companies, 25% of the respondents said their corporate response in proactive, this is followed by reactive (22.3%), autonomous (21.4%), planned (18.7%), and anticipatory (12.4%). The result supports the view that companies adapt proactive strategy when perceived threat of change is high (Bui & de Villiers, 2017). We see a consistent pattern when this finding is matched with the result that companies perceive climate change as having adverse effect on their business operation and health. In addition, companies have adopted formal sustainability practices in the following order of popularity: Social, environmental, and sustainability certification (68.8%), Health and safety certification (45.2%), and social sustainability certification (42.5%). About 13% of the respondents maintained that their companies are yet to adopt any formal sustainability practices. The result partly supports the earlier finding that the companies view climate change as having adverse effect on health hence the popularity of the Health and Safety Certification as the formal strategy among the companies.?Here, also respondents could select more than one option.?

With respect to the motivation for adapting to climate crisis, the 79% of the respondents are of the view that they were motivated by regulatory requirements, 35.6% by technological advancements, and 25.5% by competitive pressure. Stakeholder pressure, surge for best business practices, complex global environment, and social responsibility accounted for 22.9%, 18.7%, 11.2%, and 5.3% respectively. The results indicate that most companies were motivated by regulatory requirements, while social responsibility is the least motivating factor. This points to the need for greater legislation and regulatory standards if companies are to incorporate climate adaptation strategies into their policies. Specific processes employed by the companies listed in order of adoption prominence are to reduce energy consumption, reduce water consumption, reduce harmful emissions, reduce, and recycle waste, and reduce packaging environmental effects.

The results have both theoretical and practical implications. Theoretically, the study sheds light on the climate change adaptation strategies in the context of African emerging markets using companies from different sectors of the economy as the unit of analysis. Previous studies have focused on adaptation strategies of companies in Europe and Asia and in specific industries such as ski, energy, and tourism. Practically, the study provides a good basis for understanding corporate climate change strategies and the motivation behind their implementation. This will be of interest governments and regulators in the legislation administering country-specific climate change response standards. Further, for practitioners, the findings explain the level of commitment to reduce the adverse impact of business processes to climate change at the corporate level, and thus, useful for climate change policy discussions.

Conclusions

This study investigates corporate response to climate in the context of African emerging markets using the survey and descriptive methods. We collected data from 317 respondents from various sectors of the Nigerian economy and analyzed the data using descriptive statistics. The results indicate that most companies employed the proactive strategy, suggesting that they perceive climate threat as having severe impact on their businesses. This finding debunks the claim that African countries do not pay much attention to climate change despite the adverse consequences that it has on their organizations. In addition, majority of respondents are of the view that climate change hurts their business and their health. This could explain the reason for implementing proactive strategy to cushion the current and future impacts. In terms of the duration for the implementation of climate change, the result indicates that most companies have adaptation strategies for the past 15 years. Nigeria, like many African countries, ratified the Kyoto Protocol in 2004 and it is expected that firms should have implemented strategies such as the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions earlier. Nevertheless, the reluctance in implementation could be explained by the perceived uncertainty about the extent, monitoring impacts, and weak policy and regulatory incentives.

The findings also highlight the importance of regulators in pushing companies to implement suitable sustainability approaches for climate change. Also, the companies are motivated by competitive pressure in response to climate change to keep up with industry trends and maintain relevance. With respect to the specific sustainability strategies, most companies have adopted measures to reduce energy consumption. For water consumption, however, the companies are yet to see the need for significant reduction in consumption. In the same vein the companies have not considered the use of environmentally friendly ways of packaging their products as important. The major motivations for adapting to climate change are regulatory requirements, technological advancement, stakeholder pressure, competitive pressure, and the surge for best business practices. From the resource-dependency theory, African companies, though appreciating the need to turn environmental resources into competencies may lack the technical capability to do so because of limited technology. Consequently, they are slow in responding to climate change as compared to their counterparts in the developed nations. Further, the TBL model is not well incorporated into corporate strategy of the companies, which explains why most African companies have only recently adapted climate change strategies into their business model.

The major limitation of this study is that it used only Nigerian companies in the sample. This is necessary because at the time of conducting the research, there was travel restrictions because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Despite this shortcoming, the result provides insight into corporate practices with respect to climate change in Africa since Nigeria offers a fair representation of the African content by being the largest economy. Furthermore, since the aim of this study is to investigate the climate response strategies by companies in emerging economies, the paper did not attempt to examine the linkage between the strategies and competitive advantage. Future research may employ the resource dependency theory or the TBL model to examine whether certain climate change strategies lead to competitive advantage.

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