Challenges and Opportunities of Corporate Climate Action in South Africa: An Investigation Using the Aqal Framework of The Integral Theory

Abstract

Climate change is a complex, wicked problem of the 21st century caused by greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions produced by economic growth endeavours and urban life. World leaders have signed agreements to work towards Net Zero emissions by 2050 and keep global average temperatures below 2°C. However, almost a decade later, global temperatures are reaching all-time highs and there seems to be no change in sight. Because the private sector is the leading emitter, this study aimed to determine the personal and cultural values, beliefs and perceptions, behaviours, and systems that foster (opportunities) or impede (challenges) corporate climate action in South Africa. A holistic approach – the AQAL (all quadrants, all levels, all lines, all states, all types) framework of the Integral Theory – was used, considering that South Africa is a developing country that is dealing with a number of urgent environmental, social, and economic challenges and understanding the complexity of social issues and the South African context particularly. Data were collected through interviews with environmental/sustainability specialists practicing in the private sector, environmental and business organisations, government and academics in sociology, business, and climate change. Furthermore, content analysis of climate change legislation, policies and guidelines relevant to South Africa, as well as climate change related business reports of a sample of JSE listed companies was conducted. The results showed that companies are starting to consider climate change in relation to their operations, however, they were perceived to be performing poorly, only taking opportunities that are easy and quick to return benefit and not taking transformative climate actions to reengineer their core operations. The challenges that were found to be impeding corporate climate action in South Africa were uncertainties around climate change, ineffectiveness of climate change campaigns and guidelines in enforcing climate action, a perverse economic system, socio-economic priorities that take precedence over climate action requirements, South African social dynamics relating to poverty and aspirations that stymie the activism culture, a lack of financial and technical capacity and expertise, tension between young, creative thinkers who are more concerned about climate change and old leaders who may be skeptics and make decisions based only on financial flows, a lack of infrastructure for certain climate related actions such as recycling, issues relating to the coal and energy sector and national governance. The opportunities that could be leveraged related to platforms like the NBI where businesses can collaborate on policy, global initiatives, and workable solutions, opportunities to collaborate with academics and other research organisations who are producing contextual data and solutions, young creative thinkers whose ideas can be integrated into decisions making processes, existing climate change awareness and activism by NGOs and conscious civil society, opportunities for government and business to band together to share resources, technical capacity and expertise, leveraging public and private funds to invest in climate change projects and infrastructure, possibilities of diversifying the energy mix through private energy production and grid feed-in, and positioning the country to receive international aid. Recommendations to mitigate the barriers of corporate climate action and leverage opportunities include collaboration between the different stakeholders to come up with comprehensive solutions and policies to create and enabling environment for positive business response, government finding the political will to make hard decisions, combining business and government resources, capacities and competencies, delegating certain mandates to other stakeholders such as business and environmental organisations, opening up communication pathways for bottom-up influence in business, and business and government leveraging their roles as opinion shapers to educate, raise awareness, shift mindsets and reframe aspirations.