What do we need to know: What are the major sociological research questions?
A bottom-up, micro-agent perspective provides insight on how individual firms respond in the face of climate
change. However, the transition to a low-carbon economy implies wide scale, macro-structural change.
Sociologists have tackled questions about environmentally-motivated macro-structural change from two
directions, but no consensus exists on the possibility of greening the economy or on the top-down dynamics of
ecological restructuring.
Environmental sociology offers two competing theories about the potential for ecologically restructuring
the economy. On the one hand, treadmill of production approaches argue that the dual forces of inter-firm
competition and unlimited wants lock capitalist societies into a single expansionary economic system. Theorists
describe an economy of ever-increasing production and associate it with ever-increasing environmental impacts,
in the form of environmentally damaging withdrawals (i.e., resource extraction) and additions (i.e., waste and
pollution) (Schnaiberg 1980; Schnaiberg and Gould 1994; Schnaiberg, Pellow, and Weinberg 2002). In contrast,
ecological modernization theorists envision the possibility of industrial restructuring, based on principles of
ecology (Spaargaren and Mol 1992). The “emancipation” of ecological concerns from the economic sphere is
the first step toward putting ecological rationality on equal footing with economic drivers. The next step is “to
institutionalize ecology in production and consumption processes, and thus to redirect these basic economic
practices into more ecologically sound ones” (Mol 1995, p.30).
Empirical studies have not yet resolved the theoretical debate between the two perspectives. Regional
and industry case studies provide some empirical support for ecological modernization theories, documenting
efficiency improvements in industrial production (Mol 1995; Sonnenfeld 1998). However, this body of case study
research is critiqued for projecting economy-wide changes based on single industry case studies and for ignoring
leakage, i.e. when environmental improvements in one sector lead to increased environmental damage in another
(York and Rosa 2003). Focusing specifically on greenhouse gas emissions, cross-national quantitative analyses
find that population and political economy variables, in line with treadmill of production approaches, rather than
ecological modernization variables, such as state capacity and prevalence of environmental NGOs, best predict a
country’s environmental footprint, including its carbon emissions (York, Rosa, and Dietz 2003).
Filling the gap between the robust understanding of the micro-agent, firm-level responses to climate
change and the debate over the macrostructural consequences of firm greening and the possibility of transition to a
low-carbon economy requires research in four areas:
- Sector-wide research on firm climate policies and practices: The large multinational corporations that
have been the focus of firm-level studies are only one type of firm that will have to grapple with climate
change. Transitioning to a low-carbon economy depends not only on leading firms, but also on those firms
that vocally oppose action, and most importantly on the large group of follower firms that will either mimic
leading proponent or opponent firms. Research thus needs to focus on the climate policies and practices of all
firms in a sector. In the climate change arena, one hurdle to research on firm climate practices is the lack of
standardized and comprehensive data on firm greenhouse gas emissions. - The climate practices of developing-country firms: The environmental footprints of firms in industrialized
countries are being eclipsed by those in the industrializing economies of Asia and Latin America, yet most
research on firm environmental behavior has focused on firms in the United States, Europe and Japan.
Research is needed to assess if standard models of firm environmental behavior characterize the operating