IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jeners/v8y2015i9p9620-9639d55265.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Carbon as Investment Risk—The Influence of Fossil Fuel Divestment on Decision Making at Germany’s Main Power Providers

Author

Listed:
  • Dagmar Kiyar

    (Wuppertal Institute for Climate, Environment and Energy, Döppersberg 19, 42103 Wuppertal, Germany)

  • Bettina B. F. Wittneben

    (Environmental Change Institute, School of Geography and the Environment, University of Oxford, Oxford OX1 3QY, UK
    Pentland Centre for Sustainability in Business, Lancaster University, Lancaster LA1 4YX, UK)

Abstract

German electricity giants have recently taken high-level decisions to remove selected fossil fuel operations from their company portfolio. This new corporate strategy could be seen as a direct response to the growing global influence of the fossil fuel divestment campaign. In this paper we ask whether the divestment movement currently exerts significant influence on decision-making at the top four German energy giants—E.On, RWE, Vattenfall and EnBW. We find that this is not yet the case. After describing the trajectory of the global fossil fuel divestment campaign, we outline four alternative influences on corporate strategy that, currently, are having a greater impact than the divestment movement on Germany’s power sector. In time, however, clear political decisions and strong civil support may increase the significance of climate change concerns in the strategic management of the German electricity giants.

Suggested Citation

  • Dagmar Kiyar & Bettina B. F. Wittneben, 2015. "Carbon as Investment Risk—The Influence of Fossil Fuel Divestment on Decision Making at Germany’s Main Power Providers," Energies, MDPI, vol. 8(9), pages 1-20, September.
  • Handle: RePEc:gam:jeners:v:8:y:2015:i:9:p:9620-9639:d:55265
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/8/9/9620/pdf
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/8/9/9620/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Christophe McGlade & Paul Ekins, 2015. "The geographical distribution of fossil fuels unused when limiting global warming to 2 °C," Nature, Nature, vol. 517(7533), pages 187-190, January.
    2. Unknown, 2014. "Media Coverage 2014," 2014: Ethics, Efficiency and Food Security: Feeding the 9 Billion, Well, 26-28 August 2014 225573, Crawford Fund.
    3. [multiple or corporate authorship]., 2014. "CASE annual report 2013," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 58040, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    4. AfDB AfDB, . "Annual Report 2012," Annual Report, African Development Bank, number 461.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Sylwia Lorenc & Tomasz Leśniak & Arkadiusz Kustra & Maria Sierpińska, 2023. "Evolution of Business Models of Mining and Energy Sector Companies according to Current Market Trends," Energies, MDPI, vol. 16(13), pages 1-21, July.
    2. Truzaar Dordi & Olaf Weber, 2019. "The Impact of Divestment Announcements on the Share Price of Fossil Fuel Stocks," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(11), pages 1-20, June.
    3. Darlene Himick, 2023. "When Aging and Climate Change Are Brought Together: Fossil Fuel Divestment and a Changing Dispositive of Security," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(5), pages 1-15, March.
    4. Vincenzo Dovì & Antonella Battaglini, 2015. "Energy Policy and Climate Change: A Multidisciplinary Approach to a Global Problem," Energies, MDPI, vol. 8(12), pages 1-8, November.
    5. Yeltsin Tafur & Eric Lilford & Roberto F. Aguilera, 2022. "Assessing the risk of foreign investment within the petroleum sector of South America," SN Business & Economics, Springer, vol. 2(6), pages 1-32, June.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Schwettmann, Lars, 2015. "Decision solution, data manipulation and trust: The (un-)willingness to donate organs in Germany in critical times," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 119(7), pages 980-989.
    2. Elena Kulchina, 2016. "A path to value creation for foreign entrepreneurs," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 37(7), pages 1240-1262, July.
    3. Molyneaux, Lynette & Wagner, Liam & Foster, John, 2016. "Rural electrification in India: Galilee Basin coal versus decentralised renewable energy micro grids," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 89(C), pages 422-436.
    4. Court, Victor & Fizaine, Florian, 2017. "Long-Term Estimates of the Energy-Return-on-Investment (EROI) of Coal, Oil, and Gas Global Productions," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 138(C), pages 145-159.
    5. Avouyi-Dovi, S. & Horny, G. & Sevestre, P., 2017. "The stability of short-term interest rates pass-through in the euro area during the financial market and sovereign debt crises," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 79(C), pages 74-94.
    6. repec:dau:papers:123456789/15030 is not listed on IDEAS
    7. Ito, Hiro & Kawai, Masahiro, 2016. "Trade invoicing in major currencies in the 1970s–1990s: Lessons for renminbi internationalization," Journal of the Japanese and International Economies, Elsevier, vol. 42(C), pages 123-145.
    8. Augustine Mulolwa, 2016. "Land Governance Assessment," World Bank Publications - Reports 28503, The World Bank Group.
    9. Corbo, Leonardo, 2017. "In search of business model configurations that work: Lessons from the hybridization of Air Berlin and JetBlue," Journal of Air Transport Management, Elsevier, vol. 64(PB), pages 139-150.
    10. Joaquín Bernal-Ramírez & Jair Ojeda-Joya & Camila Agudelo-Rivera & Felipe Clavijo-Ramírez & Carolina Durana-Ángel & Clark Granger-Castaño & Daniel Osorio-Rodríguez & Daniel Parra-Amado & José Pulido &, 2022. "Impacto macroeconómico del cambio climático en Colombia," Revista ESPE - Ensayos sobre Política Económica, Banco de la Republica de Colombia, issue 102, pages 1-62, July.
    11. José Antonio Rodríguez Martín & Juan Dios Jiménez Aguilera & José Antonio Salinas Fernández & José María Martín Martín, 2016. "Millennium Development Goals 4 and 5: Progress in the Least Developed Countries of Asia," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 129(2), pages 489-504, November.
    12. Craig Garthwaite & Tal Gross & Matthew J. Notowidigdo, 2014. "Public Health Insurance, Labor Supply, and Employment Lock," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 129(2), pages 653-696.
    13. Tarek Roshdy Gebba & Mohamed Gamal Aboelmaged, 2016. "Corporate Governance of UAE Financial Institutions: A Comparative Study between Conventional and Islamic Banks," Journal of Applied Finance & Banking, SCIENPRESS Ltd, vol. 6(5), pages 1-7.
    14. Fankhauser, Samuel & Jotzo, Frank, 2017. "Economic growth and development with low-carbon energy," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 86850, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    15. Nelson, Ewan & Warren, Peter, 2020. "UK transport decoupling: On track for clean growth in transport?," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 90(C), pages 39-51.
    16. Getz, Donald & Page, Stephen J., 2016. "Progress and prospects for event tourism research," Tourism Management, Elsevier, vol. 52(C), pages 593-631.
    17. Antonio Bassanetti & Matteo Bugamelli & Sandro Momigliano & Roberto Sabbatini & Francesco Zollino, 2014. "The policy response to macroeconomic and fiscal imbalances in Italy in the last fifteen years," PSL Quarterly Review, Economia civile, vol. 67(268), pages 55-103.
    18. Lamperti, Francesco & Bosetti, Valentina & Roventini, Andrea & Tavoni, Massimo & Treibich, Tania, 2021. "Three green financial policies to address climate risks," Journal of Financial Stability, Elsevier, vol. 54(C).
    19. Joseph I. Uduji & Elda N. Okolo-Obasi & Simplice A. Asongu, 2019. "Responsible use of crop protection products and Nigeria's growth enhancement support scheme," Development in Practice, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 29(4), pages 448-463, May.
    20. Oliver Wagner & Thomas Adisorn & Lena Tholen & Dagmar Kiyar, 2020. "Surviving the Energy Transition: Development of a Proposal for Evaluating Sustainable Business Models for Incumbents in Germany’s Electricity Market," Energies, MDPI, vol. 13(3), pages 1-17, February.
    21. Weth, Mark A. & Baltzer, Markus & Bertram, Christoph & Hilaire, Jérôme & Johnston, Craig, 2024. "The scenario-based equity price impact induced by greenhouse gas emissions," Discussion Papers 30/2024, Deutsche Bundesbank.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jeners:v:8:y:2015:i:9:p:9620-9639:d:55265. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.