Fulbright Chronicles, Volume 3, Number 1 (2024)
Author
Ann C. Logue
Corporate Social Responsibility in the Arctic: The New Frontiers of Business, Management, and Enterprise by Gisele M. Arruda and Lara Johannsdottir. Laura Johannsdottir was a Fulbright Arctic Initiative Scholar, 2018–19.
As the climate warms, Arctic ice will melt. The warmer environment will destroy some transportation routes and create others. It will ruin traditional subsistence lifestyles and create modern wealth and economic opportunity. Unfortunately, the positive and negative effects won’t be spread evenly, especially given current economic and political paradigms. Decisions affecting Arctic life are often made by corporate executives and elected officials located in urban areas thousands of miles away.
Decisions affecting Arctic life are often made by corporate executives and elected officials located in urban areas thousands of miles away
Yet economic policies for the Arctic must consider the fragile ecosystems and diverse cultures in the region. Otherwise, we are all in trouble. Gisele M Arruda and Lara Johannsdottir have written a guide to understanding the issues facing the eight Arctic nations (Canada, Greenland, Iceland, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Russia, and the United States); their mostly Indigenous Arctic populations; and the corporations looking to do business the right way in the region. Many of the corporate and political players understand the language and theories of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) but not all do. Small business owners, local elected officials, and community leaders haven’t needed formal knowledge of CSR in the past, but now a new set of players is coming to the table to take advantage of the new opportunities created by climate change. Corporate Social Responsibility in the Arctic offers a way to learn more about how to connect very real local concerns to the interests of investors and executives for the benefit of the planet as a whole.
The authors are both experts on the Arctic—Arruda is a professor of Circumpolar Studies at the University of Aberdeen in Scotland and Johannsdottir is a professor in Environment and Natural Resources at the University of Iceland—and both understand the paradoxes involved. They show ways that decision-makers can use existing CSR frameworks to build processes that address local situations, including case studies of organizations that have found ways to operate within the unique setting of each Arctic nation. In each case, the local people are involved, and their interests considered in creating a program that works for them. This is a challenge, because, “[T]here are relatively few common denominators for the Arctic nations: mainly the vast wilderness area and the importance of the ocean and what it provides in the form of resources” (66).
The Arctic is a shared global resource. Most of the nations in the region are wealthy, industrialized economies that can afford to do the right thing. These nations also have geopolitical concerns that extend across the globe and may prevent them from respecting the Arctic environment and cultures. For example, how does oil extraction in Alaska affect US relations in the Middle East? How will the abundance of fresh water released by melting activity affect relationships with countries that become parched by global warming? How will climate-induced migration affect places that have been remote for millennia? Community advocates and commercial interests will have to find ways to work within a complicated global situation to preserve the best of the Arctic for the people who live there now and for future generations. The authors are clear on this: “The active participation in the design of an innovative and long-term development process seems to be a clear path to address inequalities created by the drivers of change” (135).
These are not simple issues. Corporate Social Responsibility in the Arctic offers a way forward, making it suitable for students in a university milieu who want to learn to become effective stewards of the Arctic in their professional lives as well as providing a reference for policymakers or corporate executives who want to better navigate the global implications of local decisions. It allows us to map the complexities for better decision-making in order to protect the people of the Arctic and everyone on Earth.
Gisele M. Arruda and Lara Johannsdotir, Corporate Social Responsibility in the Arctic: The New Frontiers of Business, Management, and Enterprise. Oxford: Routledge, 2022. 240 pages. $52.95 pb. $170 hb.
Biography
Ann C. Logue is a writer specializing in business and finance. She is the author of five books on investing and has written for Barron’s, Entrepreneur, and Alternatives Watch, among other publications. She lives in Chicago and holds the Chartered Financial Analyst designation. She served as a Fulbright Scholar in Mexico. She can be reached at annielogue@gmail.com