JOHANNA KENTALA-LEHTONEN Climate Change as Problem of Direction and Pace of Transition Large Finnish Business Actors’ Identity, Interests, and Political Response Strategies to Climate Politics Tampere University Dissertations 2 Tampere University Dissertations 2 JOHANNA KENTALA-LEHTONEN Climate Change as Problem of Direction and Pace of Transition Large Finnish Business Actors’ Identity, Interests, and Political Response Strategies to Climate Politics ACADEMIC DISSERTATION To be presented, with the permission of the Faculty Council of the Faculty of Management of the University of Tampere for public discussion in the auditorium B1097 of the Pinni B building, Kanslerinrinne 1, Tampere, on 12.01.2019, at 12 o’clock. ACADEMIC DISSERTATION Tampere University, Faculty of Management and Business Finland Responsible Doc. Soc. Sc. Eero Palmujoki supervisor University of Tampere and Custos Finland Pre-examiners Professor Dr. Markus Lederer Professor emerita Marja Järvelä Technical University of University of Jyväskylä Darmstadt Finland Germany Opponent Professor Dr. Markus Lederer Technical University of Darmstadt Germany The originality of this thesis has been checked using the Turnitin OriginalityCheck service. Copyright ©2019 author Cover design: Roihu Inc. ISBN 978-952-03-0982-4 (print) ISBN 978-952-03-0983-1 (pdf) ISSN 2489-9860 (print) ISSN 2490-0028 (pdf) http://urn.fi/URN:ISBN:978-952-03-0983-1 PunaMusta Oy Tampere 2019 To my dearest Kristo, Anton & Amanda ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The greatest things in life you achieve with the help of other people. That is the case also with this dissertation. It has been a long journey and there are great many people to recognize and thank. To start with, I want to thank my supervisor, Eero Palmujoki for his steady support and guidance all the way in the process as well as for his unshakable belief in my capability to finalize this dissertation. Every doctoral student would benefit from his calm, warm, and friendly but still demanding enough attitude towards his students. I would like to acknowledge Professor Dr. Markus Lederer and Professor, emerita Marja Järvelä for their insightful, encouraging and helpful comments during the final stages of the process. I am grateful for their hard work in enabling a steady pre-examination process. Furthermore, I am thankful for Professor Dr. Lederer for accepting the task of the opponent. Before I received funding for my doctoral studies, the research institute Nordregio in Stockholm employed me for a research project, in which I had a great pleasure to cooperate with Professor Dr. Richard Langlais. He had a notable influence on the eventual topic of my dissertation and to him, I owe a great deal for his encouragement to follow my own interests and passions in research, as well as for the opportunities to gain from his long research experience in the field of environmental and climate policies. While completing my doctoral studies, I have worked with a research grant at the School of Management at the University of Tampere and at the Institute for European Studies at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel. In the School of Management, I want to acknowledge Professor Pami Aalto and Professor Hiski Haukkala, who both have contributed to my dissertation with their comments and critics. I also thank Professor Ilkka Ruostetsaari for giving me his book in 2010, from which I have taken a great deal of inspiration for this dissertation. From my fellow doctoral researches, I especially want to thank Maija Mattila, Dicle Korkmaz, Sanna Kopra and Corinna Wolff for being there as colleagues and important fellow travelers on our paths towards doctoral degree. I also thank those colleagues who have commented and challenged my views in various research seminars and other events including Mikko Poutanen, Anna Heikkinen, Tiina Vaittinen, Milla Vaha and Katri Rostedt. For Salla Mikkonen I am truly grateful for her ambitious and highly important comments and critics for the final versions of the dissertation. My dissertation would not be the same without the precious time I got to spend at the Institute for European Studies at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel from 2013 to 2014. I am deeply grateful to Professor Sebastian Oberthür for accepting my request to become a visiting researcher at the IES and for all the opportunities and support that was available for me there. With great thankfulness, I remember all those great colleagues with whom I had a chance to learn not only about studies of environment and sustainable development in the context of the European Union, but also about doing research and being a researcher. I especially want to thank Ernesto Roessing, Steffi Weil, Harri Kalimo, Magdalena Sapala, Claire Dupont, Trisha Meyer, Lisanne Groen, Esther Marijnen, and Katja Biedenkopf. For providing fulltime funding, I thank the Finnish Cultural Foundation’s Pirkanmaa Regional Fund for the first year grant and the Central Fund for the three- year grant after that. The support has been invaluable for completing this work. Moreover, I gratefully acknowledge the funding from the Finnish Concordia Fund and the Ella and Georg Ehrnrooth Foundation, as well as the travel grants from the School of Management at the University of Tampere. I thank the Maj and Tor Nessling Foundation for providing me the opportunity to use their workspace for researchers in Nessling Nest during the final years of completing dissertation while working full time elsewhere. Particular thanks for this opportunity and for various insightful discussions goes to Minttu Jaakkola. I also want to thank the solution oriented and inspirational research community at the Nessling Nest, which has provided me several opportunities to debate the ideas of my research as well as expand my views on various research topics on environmental issues. My sincere thanks goes to all my interviewees: thank you for giving me the time and opportunity to see the world and climate politics from your point of view and draw the conclusions presented in this dissertation. All misinterpretations and faults are naturally mine. Since 2015, I have no longer had fulltime funding for the doctoral research, and I have worked fulltime, first in the Forum for Environmental Information and, since 2016, in the Ministry of the Environment Finland. In both of these organizations, I have had various opportunities to discuss and debate the topics of my dissertation with the “veterans” of the climate policy-making who have been around already at the time of the events described in this dissertation. I am truly grateful to all my past and present colleagues for these invaluable discussions, which have contributed to my thinking even when they have not necessarily been directly related to the analysis of the study. I am also particularly grateful to my current employer for supporting me by providing me the leaves of absence that have been necessary for completing this dissertation. I would have not endured all these years of dissertation writing without my dear friends: Anu, Marika, Kirsi, Mari, Merja, Anna-Leena, Heini, Tuomo, Päivi, Elisa, Matleena, and others. Near or far, you have been there for me when I have needed. Thank you for your friendship! Warm thanks also for all the parents of the friends of our children, who have been there to help with childcare during my long writing weekends, I could not have made it without you! My deepest gratitude goes to my extended family. I want to thank my brother Jarkko and sister Jenni and their families: I always know you will be there for me when needed. My sincere thanks to my parents-in-law: Asko for all your advice and interesting discussions about my research. As a Professor, you have been such an asset in the process. And Ulla, without you, I would have never been able to complete this dissertation, as you have always been there to take care of our children when there has been the biggest need. Both of you have supported me in this endeavor more than I could have ever expected. My childhood home was literally in the middle of a forest and nature was always present and influencing our day-to-day living. I became aware of climate change during my teenage years and the topic has not left me since. My interest in politics and political science derives from my mother who actively participated local and regional politics and often took me with her in various meetings to see how the decision-making took place in practice. Politics and issues of the world were always discussed in our home. To my parents, I want to say: You did everything right. Thank you mother for always discussing with me about everything in life. Thank you father for always believing in me whatever I have aimed for. You have always been interested in society and contributing to the community around you. You are educated, warm-hearted, and eager to participate in society’s development and advancement. You taught me how important it is to be an active citizen, to take part in politics and stand for those values I believe in. I owe my success in life for the education and love you have given me. Finally, my dear children Anton and Amanda, who have come to this world during this long journey of doctoral studies. Thank you for being here. You are the light of my life and the reason to wake up every morning. Last, and most importantly, I thank Kristo. You are the love of my life, my partner in life, love, and everything. My life would be empty and meaningless without you and our precious children in it. ABSTRACT Climate change ranks among the top critical challenges threatening the well-being and development of societies today. To counter that threat, business actors are important societal actors whose responses to policies and interactions with other societal actors influence the possibilities of overcoming the climate change crisis.