Has Business Really Changed? The Never-Ending Narrative of Business Climatization

The idea of climatization has been recently used with great relevance to characterize how numerous actors and issues are “attracted” by transnational climate change politics and negotiations. While useful, in particular in a comparative perspective (across different sets of issues and actors), we argue that this idea remains so far overly descriptive. Indeed, the level of analysis – actors’ engagement, discourse, material changes – and, related, the final destination of this process – what would be a full climatization? – are among the questions that still have to be addressed. After discussing these issues, this paper will offer an account of business climatization based on a narrative analysis. A selection of texts produced by prominent business associations from 1992 onward will be studied. This analysis will reveal the dynamic dimensions of the story told by these associations (from an initial to a final situation, with all the complications in between), its striking stability over time, and its inability to provide a proper ending to this self-described “radical change” plot. This trait, along with the constant vagueness regarding business responsibility in this change process, will show the long-standing ambiguities of business climatization and provide a ground to assess its current progressive positioning.