Why do business organisations contribute to climate change governance in areas of limited statehood? In many countries, governments are too weak and often also not willing to set and enforce climate change regulations. While companies have the capacities to fill the resulting governance gap, conventional wisdom expects them to take advantage by relocating their production sites in order to escape strict national regulation. Studies on South Africa, Kenya and Germany demonstrate that business contributions to the mitigation and adaptation to climate change vary significantly between countries, sectors and firms. In order to explain these variations, the contributors bring together two important literatures that rarely speak to each other - governance and business management - arguing that the threat of public regulation has an important role in motivating business efforts.

How and why do business organisations contribute to climate change governance? The contributors' findings on South Africa, Kenya and Germany demonstrate that business contributions to the mitigation and adaptation to climate change vary significantly.

The role of business in developing innovative responses to complex social and environmental problems is becoming increasingly urgent as a subject of study. A more proactive role for business is especially pertinent in Sub-Saharan Africa which, although plagued by conflict and poverty, shows signs of a brighter future as the world's second fastest-growing region. Yet there is very little research on this subject in Africa. This book seeks to contribute to the growing body of scholarly work on social and environmental innovation with the two-fold aim of studying the role of business in creating such innovation and focusing on the African context. The chapters and case studies within this book address the role of entrepreneurs, large companies, cross-sector collaboration initiatives, and academia and teachers in social and environmental innovation. Cutting across these sections are four themes: social innovation as a process and outcome; mapping and scaling up innovation; the tension between social purpose and profit generation; and socio-economic and institutional context.