Fossil governance: Oil companies, climate emergency, and the consequences of a complicit architecture of soft regulation

Nishat-Botero, Yousaf and Willmott, Hugh ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1321-7041 2025. Fossil governance: Oil companies, climate emergency, and the consequences of a complicit architecture of soft regulation. Barnow, T., Popp-Madsen, B. and Jessen, M., eds. The Corporation, Corporate Governance and the Sustainable Transition, Research in the Sociology of Organizations, Emerald Publishing Limited, pp. 133-158. (10.1108/s0733-558x20250000098007)

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Abstract

Capitalism has put fossil energy at the very heart of its mode of accumulation and expansion, with catastrophic consequences for the earth and the lifeworlds of its inhabitants. This paper introduces the concept of fossil governance to describe how the existing architecture and grammar of corporate governance sustains carbon dependencies and deepens the metabolic rift in the carbon cycle. Through an analysis of the licence granted to Equinor to exploit the Rosebank oil field, we illustrate how the content and operation of ‘soft’ regulatory codes of corporate governance (as distinguished from ‘hard’ legislation) endorse and enable the accumulation of fossil capital. We argue that without systemic reform, corporate governance will remain an obstacle to downscaling the fossil economy in line with global warming limits, and we consider how the societal governance of companies to restrain and overcome fossil capital may be enabled by democratic economic planning institutions informed by principles of ecological repair, regeneration and justice.

Item Type:	Book Section
Status:	Published
Schools:	Schools > Business (Including Economics)
Publisher:	Emerald Publishing Limited
ISBN:	9781836089650
Last Modified:	09 Dec 2025 11:45
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/183037

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