Two linked topics concerning environmental issues at the WTO and their implications for MNEs are considered – namely, international business in the environmental goods and services sector, and the relationship of the WTO to the emerging climate change regime, particularly the Kyoto Protocol....

This chapter analyzes the strategic responses by U.S. and European multinational enterprises (MNEs) in the oil and automobile industries to the global climate change issue. We examine and attempt to explain the differences across regions, across industries, and the changes over time. Traditional...

Empirical evidence from the past decade confirms that multinationals increasingly see the environment as a strategic issue, whether in terms of limiting damage to the bottom line from adverse publicity, or actually gaining in the marketplace by pioneering more environmentally conscious...

Globalization increases concerns about national governments’ ability to regulate firms’ environmental conduct because firms can avoid complying with stringent environmental regulations by locating polluting operations in countries with low regulations. Business self-regulation is...

This chapter examines the green face of the world’s one hundred largest firms from developed economies by linking degrees of internationalization to (pro)activity on environmental reporting. A bargaining approach, emphasizing intrinsic and extrinsic motivations, is applied to understand why...

The literature on foreign direct investment (FDI) and the environment has paid little attention to the role of home country factors in shaping the global practices of multinational enterprises (MNEs). By analyzing the interface between FDI and the environment from a Danish perspective, this...

This chapter aims to determine the financial performance impacts of environmental strategies. The chapter builds upon a sample of firms operating in Belgium and includes both domestic firms and affiliates of foreign multinational enterprises. It appears that an environmental leadership approach...

We examine the relationship between the degree of internationalization (DOI) of a sample of 148 U.S.-based MNEs and measures of their corporate environmental performance. Using cross-sectional data for 1993 and 1998, and longitudinal data for 1993–1999, we tested for associations between the...

This chapter presents a conceptual framework to understand the role of multinational enterprises in the process of environmental standard setting in the global economy. Inside the multinational, we discuss the impact of path-dependency and irreversibility on environmental investment, and the...