Beyond Planetary Limits! The International Chamber of Commerce, the United Nations, and the Invention of Sustainable Development

Abstract

This article examines the role of business interests in shaping the structures of global environmental governance between the United Nations (UN) Conference on the Human Environment in Stockholm in 1972 and the UN Conference on Environment and Development in Rio in 1992. It demonstrates how the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) managed to establish itself as a key partner for the UN while articulating a neoliberal vision that emphasized the market mechanism and business self-regulation as sources of environmental governance. The article provides empirical evidence that the ICC institutionalized business self-regulation in environmental governance and contributed to the very definition of the concept of sustainable development as we know it today.