Corporate Strategic Response Towards Climate Change Mitigation: Insights from Interviews with Palm Oil Companies

The increasing frequency of extreme weather events has prompted regulators, non-governmental organisations, academics and various other groups to take initiatives to address climate change issues. In line with these initiatives, a number of studies on corporate strategic responses toward climate change mitigation were conducted. Nevertheless, many of these prior studies tend to focus on large firms worldwide or firms in advanced countries. Thus, in this paper, we explore corporate strategic responses toward climate change mitigation by palm oil companies in Malaysia. Based on semi-structured interviews, the results show that there are various strategies to mitigate climate change adopted by the palm oil companies. These include the development of a comprehensive climate action plan with the oversight from the board of directors, and the setting up of carbon footprint monitoring system. Our results also suggest that the corporate strategic response of the Malaysian Palm oil companies examined align with the continuum-based model, as these companies continuously enhance their mitigation strategies over time