Engaging With Environmental Stakeholders: Routes To Building Environmental Capabilities In The Context Of The Low Carbon Economy

The transition to a low carbon economy demands new strategies to enable organisations to take advantage of the potential for ‘green’ growth. An organisation’s environmental stakeholders can provide opportunities for growth and support the success of its low carbon strategies, as well as potentially acting as a constraint to new initiatives. Building environmental capabilities through engagement with environmental stakeholders is conceptualised as an important aspect for the success of organisational low carbon strategies. We examine capability building across a range of sectors affected by the sustainability agenda, including construction, rail, water and health care. We identify a number of emergent environmental stakeholders and explore their engagement with the development of environmental capabilities in the context of the transition towards a low carbon economy. Our conceptual framework offers a categorisation of environmental stakeholders based on their position in relation to a focal organisation and the potential for the development of environmental capabilities. Publisher Statement - This is the peer reviewed version of the following article: Baranova, P & Meadows, M 2017, 'Engaging With Environmental Stakeholders: Routes To Building Environmental Capabilities In The Context Of The Low Carbon Economy' Business Ethics: A European Review, vol 26, no. 2, pp. 112-129, which has been published in final form at https://dx.doi.org/10.1111/beer.12141. This article may be used for non-commercial purposes in accordance with Wiley Terms and Conditions for Self-Archiving.