| dc.description.abstract | This research explores the relationship between Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and
Corporate Political Activity (CPA) in the context of climate policy development. It does so by
investigating to what extent the framework of deliberative lobbying, as initiated by Irina Lock
and Peter Seele, can be applied to the case of how the International Association of Oil & Gas
Producers (IOGP), FuelsEurope, and BusinessEurope lobbied to influence EU taxonomy
regulation 2020/852, which was adopted on 18 June 2020. In this context, it asks the following
question: to what extent can deliberative lobbying account for how fossil fuel and financial
business associations in the European Union between 2011 and 2020 influenced taxonomy
regulation 2020/852?
The research answers this question by making use of several relevant theoretical
concepts, that together form the framework of analysis. In particular, David Lowery’s theory
on why organizations lobby, as well as the theory of access goods by Pieter Bouwen, prove to
be useful. The analysis, furthermore, is executed by making use of Andreas Dür’s method of
degree of preference attainment, which determines the influence of interest groups by tracking
a political process in which positions of interest groups shift and are shaped over time. While
determining influence is perceived to be a difficult endeavour, it is also compelling, as a great
variety of lobbying sources are consulted in the research process.
The main finding of this research, then, is that for the period between 2011 and 2020,
deliberative lobbying formed a convincing framework for how fossil fuel and financial business
associations were politically active in lobbying. The associations, through their lobbying, were
able to put the economic activities of, and the sectors in general, in a favourable environmental
CSR framework. However, the analysis has also raised the question of how long the fossil fuel
and financial sectors will be able to convincingly construct a CSR-CPA relationship in a
sustainability and climate policy context, as the analysis sees the development of a political
context that increasingly demanded concretization and institutionalization of environmental
CSR ambitions. | |
