Profit and purpose: How intense competition makes the best climate warriors

Firms with strong market-oriented cultures deliver lowest carbon footprints, study says

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CHAPEL HILL, N.C. (Callaway Climate Insights) — A new study finds that firms with the strongest market cultures — emphasizing competitiveness, results and market dominance — also have the lowest carbon footprints, on average.

The implication is that investors have been laboring under a false dichotomy, mistakenly believing that they have to choose between companies that either promote profit or the climate. It turns out that the companies that emphasize pursuit of the former are also good at promoting the latter.

The study, titled “Corporate Market Culture and Climate Performance,” began circulating in academic circles earlier this month. It was conducted by Guo Lua, Georgios Voulgarisa, and Alice Liang Xua of the University of Manchester in the U.K.

There have been only a few studies over the years that have examined corporate culture’s role in influencing companies’ pursuit of their climate goals. That’s in large part because culture is difficult to measure. But almost everyone in the corporate governance world has nevertheless known that culture plays a huge role. The late Peter Drucker, the famous management consultant and professor of management at New York University and Claremont Graduate School, famously once said that “culture eats strategy for breakfast.”