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  • Fall 2020
  • Article
  • Daedalus

Climate in the Boardroom: Struggling to Reconcile Business as Usual & the End of the World as We Know It

By: Rebecca Henderson
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Abstract

How does one witness to businesspeople about climate change? Climate change is a problem for the collective and the long term, whereas business often requires a ruthless focus on the individual and the quarter. Climate change is an ethical catastrophe whose solution almost certainly requires a profoundly moral response, but talk of morality in the boardroom is often regarded with profound suspicion. Reconciling these tensions has forced me to navigate between worlds in an ongoing attempt to persuade businesspeople that solving climate change is both an economic and a moral necessity, and that the purpose of business is not only to make money but also to support the institutions that will enable us to build a sustainable world. This has not always been easy.

Keywords

Sustainable Business; Climate Change; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Environmental Sustainability

Citation

Henderson, Rebecca. "Climate in the Boardroom: Struggling to Reconcile Business as Usual & the End of the World as We Know It." Special Issue on Witnessing Climate Change. Daedalus 149, no. 4 (Fall 2020): 118–124.
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About The Author

Rebecca M. Henderson

General Management
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More from the Author
  • Firms, Morality, and the Search for a Better World By: Rebecca Henderson
  • A Political Economy of Justice By: Danielle Allen, Yochai Benkler, Leah Downey, Rebecca Henderson and Joshua Simons
  • Innovation in the 21st Century: Architectural Change, Purpose, and the Challenges of Our Time By: Rebecca Henderson
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