Vox Employee: Green Workers and Corporate Climate Action

• In Event: Firm Politics in an Era of Climate Crisis

Abstract

Public opinion -- vox populi -- influences political outcomes through voting, protest, and civil society, but can it also do so through corporations' political behavior? Climate policy offers a crucial test for this question because support for climate action varies widely across the employed public and corporate employers are heavily involved in both private and public climate governance. To explore how workers' climate attitudes -- vox employee -- shape the climate policies of corporations, we build the first index of workforce sentiment towards climate policy across American industries. We show that firms with pro-climate workforces are vastly more likely to make net-zero commitments, hire sustainability officers, and publicly report their emissions. Firms with green workers are also more likely to attempt to influence public policy by participating in pro-climate political groups. Our findings describe an under-appreciated channel through which public opinion influences politics: the political behavior of the public's employers.

Authors

• Jared Cory, University of Michigan

• Michael Henry Lerner, London School of Economics

• Iain Osgood, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor