ARS_Final Report_For WWF

GLOBAL ENVIRONMENT ISSUES:
Are Public Goods Trapped by Value Chains?
Junko Taira and Mario Leandros Huber
Supervisors: Dr. Pascal Van Griethuysen and Ibrahim Saïd
Partner Organisation: World Wide Fund for Nature International, Public Sector Partnership
Submitted for Applied Research Seminar: Development and Sustainability
December 10th, 2014

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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Executive Summary......................................................................................................................................2
Introduction..................................................................................................................................................2
Research Questions......................................................................................................................................4
Literature Review.........................................................................................................................................5
The Global Public Goods Approach .......................................................................................................5
The Global Value Chain Approach to Environmental Protection ..........................................................7
Previous Studies: Criteria for Classifying Environmental Funding.......................................................11
Conceptualization................................................................................................................................12
Empirical Analysis.......................................................................................................................................15
Methodology .......................................................................................................................................15
Analysis................................................................................................................................................18
Results..................................................................................................................................................29
Discussion...................................................................................................................................................31
Limitation.............................................................................................................................................31
Implications .........................................................................................................................................31
Conclusion ..................................................................................................................................................32
References..................................................................................................................................................33

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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
This research project aims: 1) to identify global trends in green investments, 2) to observe whether
there is a shift from a traditional "global public goods" (GPG) approach to a "global value chain" (GVC)
approach, and 3) to understand the rationales behind the trends. The first part conceptualizes GPG and
GVC. In the following empirical part, reports from four organisations (ADB, KfW, Coca-Cola Company and
Unilever) were selected and investigated. Using the Qualitative Document Analysis as a method, we
discovered that the GVC approaches are the mainstream. This result gives an implication for non-
commercial actors, such as WWF, to fill the gaps in disproportional green investments in GPG and GVC.
INTRODUCTION
This project on the nature of environmental funding is conducted for the World Wide Fund for
Nature (WWF), an international non-governmental organisation working on conserving biodiversity and
reducing human ecological footprint. The objective of this project is: 1) to identify global trends in green
investments, 2) to observe whether there is a shift from a traditional "global public goods" (GPG)
approach to a "global value chain" (GVC) approach, and 3) to understand the rationales behind the
trends. We will also briefly touch on implications this shift in green investments would have on WWF’s
future strategy.
While both the GPG and GVC approaches are understood as aiming at sustainability and
contributing to solve environmental issues, they present important differences in the way they are
motivated, designed and enacted. This makes it difficult to specify and compare the exact nature,
strategies and mechanisms of these two approaches. Our research starts from exploring these two
approaches in order to establish categories in the flow of green investments.
The GPG approach emphasizes on the shared responsibilities and consequences regarding
environmental management and degradation. The essential in the strategic underpinning of this
approach is the concept of bounded space, where certain environmental goods and services need to be
protected or even shielded from destructive economic activities; in essence, there is a separation of
certain spaces to be protected from production spaces. In this approach, it is environmental goods
themselves, rather than the relations between productive activities and environmental goods, that must
be protected. Therefore, the GPG approach protects biodiversity through protected areas and addresses

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climate change by setting emission standards, so that ‘natural’ spaces (e.g. forests or the atmosphere)
can continue to exist and function for the common benefit of humankind.
Historically, protected areas have been recognized as a cornerstone of the GPG approach.
Terrestrial protected areas now cover nearly 13% of the world’s land surface, and governments around
the world have recently committed to expanding this to 17% by 2020. Marine protected areas currently
cover less than 1% of the world’s oceans with a target of 10% set for 2020. However, the scale and
efficacy of protected areas has been called into question due to the insufficient protection for ensuring
sustainability in natural system, the exclusion of local people and the difficulty in preventing illegal
activities, such as wildlife poaching. As biodiversity continues to decline, the management effectiveness
of protected areas will need to be improved, along with their integration and linkage with the
management of productive land and seascapes outside of protected areas (ADB & WWF, 2012).
Therefore, the primary solution for conserving environmental Global Public Goods (GPGs) is through
financial sources by conservation agencies and the reservation of protected areas by the government.
On the other hand, the GVC approach integrates environmental protection and values of
sustainability into the process of production. Nature is considered as a factor of production, an
exploitable resource, a resource that can provide sustainable ecosystem services. In this context it is
expected that businesses are willing to make investments to secure those resources or services. Hence,
the funding towards environmental protection targets a specific return, creating an implicit exchange
between production and nature.
Space is no longer differentiated, bounded or shielded. Rather, it is the relations between
environmental goods and services and productive activities that the GVC approach protects: a farmer
utilizes sustainable practices to maintain the viability of the soil for crop production; a water utility
company invests in wetland protection as a cost effective strategy to ensure a clean and secure water
supply. The GVC approach views environmental protection as a form of risk management; information
on environmental hazards and the minimization of uncertainty encourage firms to invest in the GVC
approach. Ecosystem degradation and loss, the result of market failure where environmental costs
remain external to decisions over production and consumption are internalized through regulatory
mechanisms. Additionally, partnerships among private, public and NGO actors expand the GVC approach
beyond strictly economic considerations.

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One of the examples of GVC approach is a transformation of green economy proposed by the
United Nations Environmental Program (UNEP). UNEP defines a green economy as one that improves
“human well-being and social equity while significantly reducing environmental risks and ecological
scarcities” (UNEP, 2014). Therefore, the GVC approach aims to have a better natural resource
management by creating a framework where people pay for these ecosystem services. WWF, while
traditionally centered on the GPG approach, has in recent years been shifting some of its focus to the
GVC approach, for example through their work with private corporations, regulatory frameworks and
certification among others. An example is the “Water risk filter,” an online tool that helps firms assess
their entrepreneurial risks concerning water supply and quality, in order to incorporate water risks in
their planning (http://waterriskfilter.panda.org/). This investment by WWF and the German Investment
and Development Corporation (DEG, a subsidiary of KfW, see below) targets private enterprise and
highlights the economic value of water, making water supply a service provided by the ecosystem.
In some specific cases both approaches may overlap, for example when a preservation area is
created and maintained as a part of an organized tourism project. Other environmentalist practices -
such as consumption reduction and its promotion - are at first sight distinct from both approaches. This
preliminary report starts by elaborating the research questions, then presents the current state of the
literature review, and details the methodology, a qualitative document analysis. The choice of the
documents and the coding guidelines are presented, as well as some examples of application.
RESEARCH QUESTIONS
The short discussion above shows the necessity of conceptualization work for the ideas of GPG
and GVC as approaches to environmental funding. Hence, the first part of the research questions are an
inquiry about the nature of this proposed classification criterion (conceptualization part). In a second
part, we will ask how environmental funding is changing in terms of the concepts elaborated in the first
part (empirical part).
CONCEPTUALIZATION PART
● What are the characteristics of the GPG and GVC approaches?
● Is there a clear distinction between GPG and GVC approaches? Do they form a clear dichotomy?
Do they rather represent the ends of the spectrum?
● In which sectors or fields are these concepts most meaningful?

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● What are the origins, the background or the antecedents of these concepts?
● What are the limitations of these concepts?
EMPIRICAL PART
● Do selected organisations follow the GPG or GVC approaches for green investment?
● How are the discourses of organisations justifying or illustrating this expenditure? What are the
rationales behind the GPG and GVC approaches?
● Are the organisations shifting their focus from GPG to GVC approaches?
● How do the flows of expenditures following GPG and GVC approaches compare to each other?
● Do organisations in the public sector exhibit different patterns than those in the private?
LITERATURE REVIEW
The conceptualization is based on a literature review oriented towards the concepts of Global
Public Good (GPG) and Global Value Chain (GVC) as approaches to environmental protection and their
interplay. Particular attention was given to the characterization of the GVC and GPG approaches
according to the research questions, which will identify their relationship with related concepts, such as
ecosystem services or market-based instruments.
There are two goals in the literature review section. First, this section will allow to conduct an
informed reflection to answer the first set of research questions, that makes important steps to
understand more solid definition of the GVC and GPG approaches to environmental protection. Second,
the literature review together with the conceptualization will give an analytical framework and
categories to analyze the empirical part of this research.
THE GLOBAL PUBLIC GOODS APPROACH
First of all, it is important to explore the nature of public goods in order to have a
comprehensive understanding of the GPG approach. According to United Nations Development
Programme (1999), public goods have two criteria: 1) Their benefits have strong qualities of publicness-
they are marked by non-rivalry in consumption and non-excludability, and 2) Their benefits are universal
in terms of countries, people and generations. Having these characteristics, public goods are further
categorized into two categories, which are pure public goods and impure public goods.

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Pure public goods do not exclude anyone who refuse to pay for the goods or service to enjoy
the benefits (non-excludability) and do not create competitions among the beneficiaries of the good and
services (non-rivalry). This is completely opposite from private goods, which are excludable and rival in
consumption. The example of public goods is fresh air, traffic lights, knowledge and national defense.
Because of their nature of non-excludability and non-rivalry, public goods typically have free riding and
under provision problems.
In contrast, for impure goods, the immediate benefits are mostly private. Few goods are purely
public or purely private, since the most possess mixed benefits. For example, the provision of nutritious
meals enhances good health, which improves their work productivity and eventually benefits for the
whole society. But, the immediate benefits are in private at first glance. The impure goods can be
further categorized into two categories, which are club goods and common pool resources. Club goods
are non-rivalrous in consumption but excludable, such as cinema, cable television, and a non-congested
toll road; it is possible to exclude someone from using it by simply denying their access, but it is not a
rival good since one person's use of the road does not reduce its usefulness to others. Common pool
resources, often referred as common goods, are the goods that are mostly non-excludable, but rivalrous
in consumption, such as wild fish stocks, forests, pastures, and water and irrigation systems. Unlike pure
public goods, common pool resources cause problems of congestion, overuse and exploitation of
resources, such as overfishing (the tragedy of the commons).
Global Public Goods (GPG) adds broader spectrum in public goods. Pure GPG is marked by
universality, which benefits all countries, people and generations. Impure GPG also tends toward
universality so that it would benefit more than one group of countries and not discriminate against any
population segment or set of generations, but the range of benefits is narrower than pure GPG. The
examples include ozone layer system, public health, financial stability, climate change mitigation and
knowledge production.
By considering the nature of public goods, it becomes clear that GPG approach sees
environment as a public goods, and therefore emphasizes on shared responsibilities among actors and
protection of environmental goods and services by shielding and separating them from destructive
activities. Introducing protected areas, conservation projects, permits and regulations can be
considered as GPG approaches, since they try to solve problem of non-excludability and non-rivalry by
separating and limiting access and use of environmental services from certain interest groups.

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As an example of GPG approach to environmental issues, Vinkhuyzen et al. (2012) argue that the
sustainable global energy system as GPG. They state that a sustainable energy system is GPG only if one
takes a system perspective, as for the individual consumer, the energy is a commodity that is both rival
and excludable. For example, an energy system that has low carbon intensity would be a public good for
all humanity because it would give the non-excludable and non-rival benefit against the problems
caused by climate change. Also, an energy system which regulates and promotes less polluting sources
will also provide non-excludable and non-rival benefits for the community, thus considered as GPG.
Considering these factors, Vinkhuyzen et al. (2012) assert that the GPG approach to the global energy
system is beneficial and effective for the society by strengthening the capacity and motivation of
countries to take actions, addressing barriers in the international system and enhancing knowledge
creation and diffusion, international standards and targets. Certainly, the establishment of global energy
system is beneficial for all population, but it will face the difficulties to promote global cooperation and
regulations as like a climate change mitigation regime. These are obstacles lying in GPG approaches.
THE GLOBAL VALUE CHAIN APPROACH TO ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION
Global public goods are easily associated with environmental protection, as one typical
examples of global public goods, the ozone layer (Pearce, 1995, p. 28), is a clear case of environmental
good, moreover one with high symbolic value. Biodiversity preservation also makes an excellent case of
the GPG approach to environmental protection (Deke, 2008). The concept of Global value chain (GVC)
however is an analytical tool that was devised at first independently from environmental considerations.
Hence, it is indicated to briefly reflect on GVC as such before looking into the GVC approach to
environmental protection.
Retrieved from: (UNDP, 1999)

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GLOBAL VALUE CHAINS AS AN ANALYTIC CONCEPT
The GVC analysis is a holistic view on global industry that focus on the value adding activities
whose final result is the product consumption. The value adding activities include anything contributing
to the end result, including intangible work (e.g. conception, design) and collateral activities (e.g.
marketing, support). Moreover, a GVC can be distributed across a multitude of different businesses or
economic actors. The global qualification in the name of the approach acknowledges that the elements
of the value chains examined in the GVC framework are typically scattered across the globe. Typical
research questions in the GVC framework concern their internal governance and its distributive impact,
or inquiry about how they players move along the value chains or shift them. Initially, GVC analysis was
focused on competitiveness of business or strictly economic questions. Only recently other dimensions
started being taken into account, including gender, labor and environment, the latter through the
“greening of value chains” (Gereffi and Fernandez-Start, 2011, p. 4).
Formally, a GVC is a sequence of value adding activities GVCs as sequence of value adding
activities. It can be attributed following dimensions according to Gereffi (1995):
1. The inputs and outputs structure and the implied transformation of raw
material into finished.
2. The geographic configuration of the sites for the various activities.
3. The chain governance, which determines its internal regulation or
coordination and the distributive outcomes of the cooperation.
4. The Institutional context, that is, the external regulation the chain is subject to.
Upgrading is one of the central starting points for the GVC analysis. It refers to the efforts made
by actors in the value chain maintain their position or to move higher value activities to increase
revenue. It includes the efforts done by external agents to support economic actors in these efforts, for
example, governments promoting a specific sector. The upgrading modalities can be typified in three
areas of action according to Humphrey and Schmitz (2002):
1. Process: reducing costs, increasing productivity, reorganizing the chain or
changing technology.
2. Product: shifting to more sophisticated products.
3. Function: assuming task in the chain with more added value.
The sequence of different upgrading steps undertaken by an actor (or an entire value chain) and
their nature are analyzed in what is called upgrading trajectories (Gereffi & Fernandez-Start, 2011).

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Concerning risk, one of the elements identified already in the early literature is the risk of
supplier failure, which often affects the governance structure (Humphrey and Schmitz, 2002). Risks in
global value chain arise particularly as a consequence of the global nature of the supply chains; among
the characteristic risks of GVCs not related to markets, there are the natural disruptions, such as
earthquakes and flooding (Lessard 2008).
GLOBAL VALUE CHAIN AS AN INTERVENTION MODALITY IN INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT
The GVC analytic concepts, together with the recognized importance of international trade to
economic growth have inspired specific modalities of development aid.
Pietrobelli and Staritz (2013) call them value chain interventions. The private sector
development strategies focusing on GVCs are informed by the analytic framework described above.
Furthermore, they highlight the GVCs as a manifestation of the deep integration that characterizes the
current state of globalization. These strategies are market-based and export-oriented. Their goal is
either supporting the economic actors of the target country in their efforts to capture more value added
in their respective GVCs, following the logic of upgrading GVCs, or, in an earlier stage, helping them
gaining access to a GVC (Pietrobelli and Staritz, 2013).
Evaluating the pertinence of GVC analysis to development aid strategies, Pietrobelli and Staritz
(2013) deplore the lack of consistency in the usage of the value chain terminology, accordingly, they
point at the lack of a common understanding, among donor agencies and governments, of the major
concepts of the value chain approach (p. 30). In this matter they conclude (p. 2): “[D]onors’ value chain
interventions too often encompass such a variety of approaches that they risk losing focus and
transforming into a “label” with no real underlying concept.”
Taking the example of the Inter-American Development Bank, the organisation to which the first
author belongs, Pietrobelli and Staritz (2013, p. 29) group the GVC interventions that tackle
environmental issues with those focused on Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). Sustainability and CSR
are typically linked to competitiveness; however the authors lament the lack of clarity on the nature of
this link.
Generally speaking, in the GVC interventions surveyed by Pietrobelli and Staritz (2013),
development is a loosely framed goal. It is not always clear how upgrading GVCs is supposed to achieve

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goals of development in a broader sense (beyond business promotion). Environmental issues are only
one accessory element of it, alongside varied social development goals.
THE GREENING OF GLOBAL VALUE CHAINS
Environmental perspectives can be integrated in GVC analysis as well as developmental
perspectives can be.
Bolwig et al. (2010) propose an expanded framework that goes beyond value chains as a stand-
alone analysis to better take into account the effects on poverty sustainability. Their analysis reminds
that GVC approaches have a strong focus on integration in global markets. They propose a typology of
two modalities of how a GVC affects the environment: either through local processes, at one node of
the chain, mostly related to local resources, or through global processes, mostly emissions whose
impact transcends locality. Typologies of impact in local processes are:
● Soil nutrient balances, which is whether agricultural production betters or harms the soil.
● Land-use change, which has effects on ecosystem, landscape, and water quality.
● Natural resource management (NRM). To this respect it is of particular interest the question:
how does the institutional environment influence how private actors manage natural
resources?
Concerning natural resources and GVCs, they state that “There is a large NRM literature, but
little that adopts a value-chain perspective” (Bolwig et al., 2010, p. 182-184).
De Marchi et al. (2013) note that the literature on how the environmental record of firms driven
by competition is improving abounds. This is represented in a concept of “eco-efficiency,” which
describes actors that compete by offering lower costs and ensuring economic gains while reducing the
impacts on the environment. However, De Marchi et al. (2013) also consider that it is necessary to
integrate the GVC analysis, as the complexity of today’s economy makes environmental policies taken at
a single firm’s level a very limited endeavour.
A populated intersection between the studies on value chains and the literature on environment
protection is represented by analysis of green supply-chain management or environmental management
strategies for the supply chain. The supply-chain is a more limited concept than the one of GVC, as it
mainly looks at how an enterprise can influence its suppliers, that is only backward. Moreover, its
literature takes a more managerial approach.

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For the purposes of this work, it is assumed that GVC approaches to environmental protection
are analogous to GVC interventions, but focus on environment protection and sustainability instead of
development and social issues. Generalizing green supply-chains analysis to green GVCs could also a
possibility to conceptualize the GVC approach.
To update the concept of risk of supplier failure, identified in the general GVC framework, one
needs to acknowledge the nature as the original supplier of certain inputs to fit the setting of GVC
approaches to the environment. In this case, mitigating the risk of supplier failure entails investments in
the environment with the goal of a sustainable supply of the natural resources in question.
PREVIOUS STUDIES: CRITERIA FOR CLASSIFYING ENVIRONMENTAL FUNDING
Inquiries about the nature of funding for environmental projects are not new. The tension
between environment protection for pure conservation and for production means has already been
researched, as the following three examples present.
Tallis et al. (2008) consider development projects aimed at advancing both environmental and
social goals. They inquire whether those projects can be both pro-poor and pro-conservation. The fact
that economic growth often features first in social goals, and the GVC approach shifts the attention to
productive activities, may suggest that the framing from Tallis et al. (2008) is compatible with ours.
However, it is important to recognize that the analytical focus of GVC is productive and profitable
activities, not development and social concerns in general. The GVC approach to environmental
protection looks at how environmental goods are part of businesses’ productive activities.
On the other hand, Hein et al. (2013) integrate payment mechanisms for ecosystem services and,
more generally, market-oriented mechanisms to funding biodiversity conservation, and they
differentiate those from non-market oriented funding. Estimations of the flows of funding falling into
each category are provided. While their framing seems close to ours at first sight, they are
fundamentally different in that Hein et al. (2013) focus on the economic nature of the payment, leaving
apart the relationship between the payer and the environmental goods paid. Very often, the GVC
approach to environmental protection involves in the use of an environmental ecosystem service and
business investing money into preserving or enhancing the availability of such service provided by the
ecosystem. This can be done through market mechanisms, but it is not a necessary condition. Also,
preservation of GPG can also be done through market-based services, such as in the case of emission

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rights in a cap and trade scheme (the ecosystem service being the ability of the atmosphere to absorb
emissions).
In the last, Miller (2014) surveys aid projects around the world between 1980 and 2008 and
identifies two important types of biodiversity-related aid: “strict” biodiversity aid that focuses only on
conservation and “mixed” biodiversity aid that integrates environmental with social or developmental
concerns. This is different from our framing because, as Tallis et al. (2008) do, Miller (2014) takes a
donor perspective and concentrates on aid. More generally, all of these three researches focus on
donors funding for projects through grants, whereas our interest is more inclined towards enterprises or
other private actors investing into environment preservation as a part of their production strategies.
This short discussion shows that the criterion for classifying environmental funding proposed in
our research (GPG vs. GVC) is different from the criteria used in previous research that similarly inquired
into the relationship between production and conservation. As a result, we cannot just adopt
methodologies used in the previous research surveyed. Hence, we propose an ad hoc methodology.
CONCEPTUALIZATION
In this section a first answer, solely based on the literature review, is provided for the first group
of research questions.
1. WHAT ARE THE CHARACTERISTICS OF THE GPG AND GVC APPROACHES?
Public Goods has two essential criteria, which are 1) non-rivalry in consumption and non-
excludability, and 2) benefits are universal in terms of countries, people and generations. Global Public
Goods (GPG) are public goods with more broad perspectives, such as benefits for all countries. Because
of non-excludability and non-rivalry characteristics, public goods have problems of free riding and
under-provision. By considering the environment as a public goods, GPG approach emphasizes on
shared responsibilities among actors and protection of environmental goods and services by shielding
and separating them from destructive economic activities.
Global Value Chains (GVCs) are the globally distributed value adding chains that result in the
delivery of end products. An environmental protection measure that follows a GVC approach considers
the logic of GVCs. This means that this measure is concerned with how production processes are
dependent on the environment, and how these impact it. Moreover, a GVC approach takes into

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consideration the entire value adding chain, transcending geographic distances, irrespective of
ownership arrangements, from conception to end consumption. It is expected that environmental
protection in the GVC approach seeks to upgrade the production processes in order to be more efficient
in the use of energy and natural resources, while cutting costs, seeks to develop better and greener
products to gain competitiveness in markets, pays attention to the origin of the inputs and seeks to
diminish waste production.
2. WHAT ARE THE ORIGINS, THE BACKGROUND OR THE ANTECEDENTS OF THESE CONCEPTS?
The idea of public goods is associated with the market failure and government's intervention
(1999, UNDP). The society needs government to overcome the failure of the market in achieving
efficiency and equity in the allocation of resources. In order to do this, the government provides
national public goods and services, such as national parks, for people's well-being. When these concepts
are expanded to the management of environmental goods, it is clear that the market often fails due to
externality costs by overusing and degrading natural capitals since it is publicly available common goods.
Therefore, any publicly available goods (non-excludability and non-rivalry) are called public goods, which
require the third party’s intervention to prevent exploitation.
GVC is a concept, pioneered by the Sociology Professor Gary Gereffi (1995), created as an
analytical tool to understand production processes in the context of international trade and deep
globalization. This appears to be the preponderant understanding of this concept. More recently, it has
been used to label development aid projects, but its use in this context is controverted as it appears to
be more a label than an actual typology with constant characteristics. The use of GVC as identifier or
descriptor of environmental protection approaches is very rare.
3. IS THERE A CLEAR DISTINCTION BETWEEN GPG AND GVC APPROACHES?
GPG and GVC approaches appear as very distinct ways to frame environmental protection
efforts. In the GPG approach, interventions are motivated by appreciation of inherent value of the
environment or the pursuit of public interests. On the other hand, in the GVC approach, the concerns
with production processes are central. Interventions are motivated by expected increases in productivity
and risk controls.

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4. DO THEY FORM A CLEAR DICHOTOMY?
The concepts of GPG and GVC do not constitute a dichotomy with capacity to classify
environmental protection approaches. On one hand, it is possible to devise environment protection
endeavors that fit well in both framings, such as for instance biodiversity conservation projects that
institute protected areas with the goal to integrate a region in the global value chains of tourism
(Conservation International 2009). On the other hand, there are environmentalist practices that elude
both the GPG and the GVC frame. An example would be consumer resistance motivated by anti-
consumption discourses that contribute in the construction of the consumer identity (Cherrier, 2009).
5. DO THEY RATHER REPRESENT THE ENDS OF THE SPECTRUM?
As the reflection in the previous point shows, GPG and GVC framings can overlap. Moreover, the
discussion of other criteria for classifying environmental funding shows that the tension between
conservation and production is actualized under different and independent forms (for example
presence/absence of market mechanisms and presence/absence of social developmental goals). Hence,
it is difficult to imagine a (one dimensional) spectrum of modalities for environmental funding with GPG
and GVC characterizations at its extremes.
6. IN WHICH SECTORS OR FIELDS ARE THESE CONCEPTS MOST MEANINGFUL?
The concepts of GPG and GVC are most meaningful when discussing global processes or issues
that involve a large number of independent actors or the cooperation of different organisations.
Particularly for GPG approach, the primary actors would be public sectors, NGOs, and government since
it aims to conserve and protect the environment from economic activities by installing regulations and
protected areas. Also, since the protection of the environment is a public interest, and the benefit is
universal, GPG has a strong meaning for every individual.
The GVC concept has been particularly developed to fit situations where globalization connects
different enterprises and productive activities together by connecting them through the value chain.
GVC is the most powerful for highlighting upstream and downstream consequences of production
decisions, including primary products at one end and consumption at the other.

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7. WHAT ARE THE LIMITATIONS OF THESE CONCEPTS?
The differentiation of GPG and GVC approaches is based on different framings of the wished
effects of the environmental investments (safeguard of GPG vs. upgrading GVC) but also of its
motivations or rationales (shared responsibility and intrinsic value of nature vs. profit and supply failure
risk mitigation), which leave a space for ambiguity and contradictory classifications. Moreover, the use
of GVC in the environment protection is not a standardized practice.
Additionally, it is unclear whether the focus on global phenomenon adds value to this discussion
or detracts attention from the main interest, the tension between conservation and production. In this
optic it is imaginable to conduct this research using instead environmental public goods protection vs.
green supply chain management.
In this section, we conceptualized the GPG and GVC approaches on green investments by
reviewing previous literature works and researches. In the methodology section next, we will start
structuring the analytical framework for this research project and specify the methodology to use for
answering the empirical part of research questions.
EMPIRICAL ANALYSIS
METHODOLOGY
The empirical analysis of this research will apply a qualitative research analysis and focus on four
important actors in global environmental investments. To take into account the encompassing nature of
the GPG and GVC concepts, two actors are chosen from the public sector, and the other two from the
private sector. Our research team chose following actors:
1. Asian Development Bank (ADB)
2. Kreditanstalt für Wiederaufbau (KfW, German Development Bank)
3. The Coca Cola Company
4. Unilever
This choice of the four organisations is based on the interesting cases and the leadership roles
the selected actors offer. The appraisal of these qualities was made in an association with the partner
organisation, WWF International and its contact person. In order to analyze actors’ trend, shift and
motivation in green investment, this research project conducts the qualitative document analysis (QDA)

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on selected publications of targeted organisations. These documents were analyzed according to the
following steps of QDA, as exemplified by Wach et al. (2013), who follow Altheide (1996).
1. SETTING INCLUSION CRITERIA FOR DOCUMENTS
The selected organisations publish a considerable amount of reports concerning their financial
engagement in environmental protection. Also, it is important to consider finding commonly available
documents for all selected organisations. The publication date was also concerned. We chose to include
1) the annual reports and 2) the sustainability reports because these two kinds of documents are
commonly available among all four organisations and are assumed to reflect interests and strategies of
organisations for green investment.
2. COLLECTING DOCUMENTS
It is necessary to look for documents publicly available online and choose annual and
sustainability reports of each selected organisation. The availability online of these reports are:
Of each organisation, we choose the most recent annual report and the most recent
sustainability report. We also chose the oldest sustainability report. This makes 12 reports in total to
investigate.
3. ARTICULATING KEY AREAS OF ANALYSIS
The documents were reviewed only with reference to the GVC and GPG approaches. The precise
key areas of analysis chosen after the literature review focus on targeted organisations’ strategies and
projects related to environment. See below analysis part for details.

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4. DOCUMENT CODING
Coding criteria was determined, in a process informed by the conceptualization part and the
analytical framework, after considering the documents chosen and their relevant parts. See below the
list of code words.
5. VERIFICATION
As the team comprises two people, we verified steps of the process, in particular coding, by
repeating them by different researchers. Given resources limitations, however, this was only on a spot
check basis.
6. ANALYSIS
The data was considered based on the key areas of analysis, and the coding was used to offer
answers to research questions. See below.
QDA PROCESS

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ANALYSIS
The documents chosen to conduct the qualitative analysis have a high amount of information
about the respective organisations. In particular in the case of the annual reports, our research is
interested only in a subset of the information. That is why in this first attempts, we select in each report
the passages that satisfy following conditions as key areas of analysis:
● The organisation reports on its own actions, expenses or investments.
● Those are related to environment and sustainability.
● The actions are internally motivated, not directly forced by regulation.
Moreover, the goal of the first attempts is to assess whether the presented efforts in
environment protection follow the GPG or the GVC approach. The literature review for both approaches
allowed identifying the most recurring concepts in each side. Those are:
CONCEPTS CODED
Hence, the first stage of the research consists in selecting and coding the quotes that satisfy the
three conditions above and that contain references to at least one of the concepts listed here. These
elements are understood as concepts instead of keywords. For example, among the hints of the GVC
approach “productivity” is listed. A mention of “cost-reduction” would be counted as a reference to
“productivity” as it is considered to be conceptually related in a very close way.
The advantages of this empirical method are that it does not require a sharp division between
GPG and GVC approaches. Similarly, this method puts the focus of the research only on those
conceptual areas and parts of the documents where at least one of the concepts (GPG or GVC) is
applicable and its use can be most meaningful.

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FINDINGS OF THE INDIVIDUAL ORGANISATIONS
The original aim of this research paper is: 1) to identify global trends in green investments, 2) to
observe whether there is a shift from a traditional "global public goods" (GPG) approach to a "global
value chain" (GVC) approach, and 3) to understand the motivation behind the trends. In this section, we
will ask these questions following methodologies presented in a previous section.
ASIAN DEVELOPMENT BANK
The Asian Development Bank (ADB) is a regional development bank established in 1966, and its
headquarter is located in Manila, Philippines. ADB aims to facilitate economic development of Asian
countries, which includes 67 members in total. For the analysis, three reports are selected:
1. The 2007 Sustainability Report Sustainability Report Spotlight on the Environment,
Social Development, and Governance (ADB, 2007)
2. The 2013 Sustainability Report Investing in Asia and the Pacific's Future (ADB, 2013)
3. The 2013 Annual Report (ADB, 2014)
For the convenience, each report is abbreviated to the ADB Sustainability report 2007, 2013 and
the ADB Annual report 2013.
In the ADB sustainability report 2007, ADB strongly emphasizes on the topic of poverty
reduction, biodiversity protection, protected area management and regulations for cooperative actions,
which are coded as the GPG approaches. For instance, ADB showed the GPG codes of “future
generations” and by stating “ ...ADB's efforts on the environment, social development, and governance
aim to help improve the lives of the poor in the Asia and Pacific region in ways that do not compromise
the ability of future generations to meet their needs” (ADB, 2007, p.8). There are several codes for
conservation as well, such as “the program is demonstrating the best ways to mitigate the sub-regional
impacts of key sectorial development programs, such as those dealing with energy and transport, and
pays particular attention to biodiversity conservation” (ADB, 2007, p.34). However, it is possible to
observe a movement toward the GVC approaches in their environment policy, which tries to connect
the environment with economic growth and poverty direction by saying “providing environmental
interventions to reduce poverty (ADB, 2007, p.39)” and “mainstreaming environmental considerations
into economic growth and development planning” (ADB, 2007, p.39). Therefore, although ADB takes the
more GPG approach for their projects in 2007, there are indications of a shift in toward GVC approaches.

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Following the investigation of ADB Sustainability 2007 Report, the ADB Sustainability Report
2013 and the ADB annual report clearly showed the emphasis on the GVC approach such as expansion
of production network, land productivity and creation of economic opportunity by green investments.
The ADB sustainability report 2013 showed the tendency of ADB to emphasize on green growth, which is
represented well in one of the GVC codes “eco-efficiency.” For example, ADB states “funding has
increased to help create and expand economic opportunities in the region” (ADB, 2013, p.ii) as well as
“by supporting this transition to green growth, we are increasingly investing in sustainable infrastructure,
natural capital, and capacity development for environmental governance, while also mitigating and
adapting to climate change” (ADB, 2013, p.iii). The keyword green growth and green economy are
repeated over in the document. Similarly, the ADB Annual Report 2013 states “it is critical that we in
Asia and the pacific respond to these concerns by continuing to adopt green growth practices,
responding to climate change, and building climate resilience into development projects” (ADB, 2013,
p.2). From these facts, it is clear that ADB mainly adopted projects of the GVC approaches in 2013.
However, in both the ADB Sustainability Report 2013 and the ADB Annual Report 2013, they
also showed moderate concerns for environmental conservation, which is coded as GPG approach. For
example, in ADB Sustainability Report 2013, they mentioned about shared responsibility (GPG code) by
saying “cooperation on regional public goods, such as clean air, control of communicable diseases, and
natural disaster management, is also necessary because these issues transcend political boundaries and
are thus of regional or even global concern” (ADB, 2013, p.12). The ADB Annual Report 2013 also
mentioned about the protected area management by stating “under an initiative to protect reefs and
fisheries in southeast Asia’s Coral Triangle, technical assistance projects helped local communities to
manage marine-protected areas” (ADB, 2014, p.11 ). Therefore, ADB still emphasizes the importance of
GPG approach, although their mainstream is the GVC approach represented in green growth.
By analyzing three reports of ADB, it is possible to observe a shift from the GPG to the GVC
approach, which is a shift of the focus from conservation to green growth in their projects. Although
ADB still applies the GPG approaches in their projects, their direction is clearly targeted as the GVC
approach. The focus of environmental issues also changed from the protection of forest, ecosystem,
coastal and marine to energy efficiency, climate change and waste management. The rationale of this
trend is illustrated in ideas of using the environment as a mean for job creations, economic growth and
economic, social and environmental sustainable development. This motivation is understandable

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because ADB’s primary aim is the economic growth and creations of economic opportunities in Asian
region compared to conservation and the protection of the environment.
KFW
The KfW is the national development bank owned by the German government. Originally called
Kreditanstalt für Wiederaufbau (Credit Institute for Reconstruction), KfW represents itself as a
promotional bank today and is active with its subsidiaries in Germany, in Europe, as well as in
developing and transitioning countries. For this analysis, three reports were selected:
1. Sustainability Report 2006 (KfW, 2006)
2. Sustainability Report 2012 (KfW, 2012)
3. Geschäftsbericht 2013 [Annual Report] (KfW, 2014)
Besides climate change, the Sustainability Report 2006 focuses on the scarcity and overuse of
non-renewable resources, which goes to the detriment of future generations. Accordingly, the activities
highlighted are promoting resource savings, energy efficiency, and renewable energy; more specifically,
an important part of the efforts of the bank targets home energy systems.
By concerning the policies for the internal workings of the organisation, KfW states: “Resource
conservation is the main driving force behind KfW’s active commitment to in-house environmental
protection” (KfW, 2006, p.67). Biodiversity preservation is also a concern, especially in the development
cooperation sector, which was addressed among others supporting protected areas (KfW, 2006, p.54-
55). More specifically, biodiversity is defined as a global concern to humankind. Thus, it is clear that
biodiversity preservation is the GPG approach in the motivation for the policy (universality) as well as in
the effect (protected area).
The promotion of energy efficiency and renewable energies is a more complicated case. On one
hand, efficiency sinks costs, and renewable energies are inputs for a value chain. However, the
motivation and the rationale for promoting those measures concentrate heavily on preservation for
future generations, without mentioning about an explicit link to production processes. For this reason,
while the effects of the measures cover both GPG (non-renewable resources are preserved, less
emissions endangering the climate) and GVC (increased productivity), the rationale follows the logic of
the GPG approach.

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In the Sustainability Report 2012, the narratives are different. It is widely dominated by the
Federal Government instruction to support the energy turnaround [Energiewende] decided by it the
previous year. The energy turnaround implies an increase in renewable energy generation, but also a
decrease in consumption.
Energy efficiency is thus the primary goal (alongside climate protection) of the activities of KfW
in Germany, but also abroad. A representative statement is: “KfW has a variety of programs that help
homeowners, tenants, municipalities and SMEs reduce their energy consumption. Efficiency
improvements tend to pay off in the medium term, but their contribution to climate protection is
immediate.” (KfW, 2012, p. 16). This is considered a reference mainly to eco-efficiency as the efforts
described focus on energy consumption. Also, the goal of reducing costs is explicitly mentioned. Hence,
it is also a reference to productivity. These elements localize those programs in the GVC approach. On
the other hand, protecting the climate protection is also mentioned as goal and climate change
mitigation is considered a GPG. However, no element that characterizes the motivation or rationale of
the GPG approach is mentioned (for example, public interests or a shared responsibility for mitigation).
Thus, these efforts, while upgrading various GVCs and protecting a GPG, are considered as belonging to
the GVC approach.
This reflection can be generalized to many other instances of investments that benefit the
climate by focusing on efficiency. This quote is also very representative for the Annual Report 2013 of
KfW, which highlights the commitment to energy efficiency in many instances, especially in buildings,
using a similar framing.
It is important to note that the activities put forward in the 2006 Report and those highlighted in
the newer reports are largely the same (energy efficiency, renewable energies), and even the main
specialty stayed energy efficiency in buildings. At the same time, because of the way these activities
were motivated, the rationales put forward and the framing of the projects, consistently with previous
reflections, a trend is registered away from the GPG to the GVC approach. This is however mainly a
discursive shift, rather than an important overhaul of the activities on the ground.
An example of important discursive element that appears in the 2012 report is the provision of
working opportunities. The number of jobs created by the energy turnaround efforts is presented (KfW,
2012, p. 18) and similarly for one project for forest conservation it is underscored how the indigenous

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communities make a living from it (KfW, 2012, p. 21). This report also features the water risk filter,
which was presented in the introduction as a typical case of GVC approach (KfW, 2012, p. 21).
Concluding, it is possible to say that KfW focuses on measures that save emissions as well as
money, and even though the purported rationales behind them changed, this focus stayed.
THE COCA-COLA COMPANY
The Coca-Cola Company is an American multinational beverage corporation and manufacturer,
retailer and marketer of non-alcoholic beverage concentrates and syrups. The headquarter is in Atlanta,
Georgia, the US. The company operates a franchised distribution system since its establishment in 1886:
the company produces concentrate and sell this to licensed Coca-Cola bottlers throughout the world,
and then the bottlers produce the finished products by mixing the concentrate with filtered water and
sweeteners. The bottlers sell, distribute and merchandise the beverage products to retail stores and
vending machines. For the analysis of the Coca-Cola Company, three reports were selected:
1. 2008-2009 Sustainability Review (Coca-Cola Company, 2009)
2. 2013-2014 Sustainability Report (Coca-Cola Company, 2014)
3. 2013 Annual Report on Form 10-K (Coca-Cola Company, 2013)
These reports are abbreviated and cited as 2008-2009 Sustainability Report, 2013-2014
Sustainability Report and 2013 Annual Report in the following section.
From the 2008-2009 Sustainability Report of the Coca-Cola Company, it is clear that their
interest is in cost reduction, expansion of supply chain, energy efficiency and creation of business
opportunity. These terms are represented in a concept eco-efficiency (GVC code) because they aim to
achieve the cost reduction in the production system together with a reduction in environmental impacts.
The project targets recycling, introduction of an energy efficient production system, water saving and
climate change mitigation. Particularly, they focus on supplier's level as a key to increase efficiency and
implement better waste management system. The Coca-Cola Company’s interests in the environmental
investments is clearly observed in the documents, such as “...we believe that investing in the economic,
environmental and social development of communities will help our business grow” (Coca-Cola
Company, 2009, p.iii) and “...we have invested in the world’s largest bottle-to-bottle recycling facility,
which is expected to generate long-term savings in the cost of materials for the Coca-Cola system”

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(Coca-Cola Company, 2009, p.2). There are almost no sentences marked by GPG codes, which means
that Coca-Cola Company in 2008-2009 mainly focused on the GVC approaches than the GPG approaches.
By reviewing 2013-2014 Sustainability Report, it was also possible to observe their interest in
eco-efficiency, market access and partnership. Coca-Cola Company is paying an effort to make their
production system sustainable by introducing projects such as in water, recycling, energy efficiency,
waste management as well as in climate change and agriculture. They particularly emphasize the
importance of reducing the impacts of plastic bottles produced by collaborating with other suppliers,
which is the same approach in the 2008-2009 Sustainability Report. The concept of eco-efficiency (GVC
code) can be found throughout the report. For instance, the quote “using energy more efficiently
enables us to better reduce our carbon footprint, conserve natural resources, and manage costs” (Coca-
Cola Company, 2014, p.66). Coca-Cola also seeks to strengthen its value chain by producing eco-friendly
products together with their partner and expand their market at the same time. This motivation is seen
in the quote such as “we are collaborating with our partners on energy efficiency and climate-protection
programs involving packaging, cooling equipment, ingredients, manufacturing and distribution” (Coca-
Cola Company, 2014, p.64). Additionally, in 2013 Annual Report, they presented their perspectives on
sustainable growth as “...1)People: Being a great place to work where people are inspired to be the best
they can be. 2)Portfolio: Bringing to the world a portfolio of beverage brands that anticipates and
satisfies people’s desires and needs. 3)Partners: Nurturing a winning network of partners and building
mutual loyalty. 4)Planet: Being a responsible global citizen that makes a difference. 5)Profit: Maximizing
return to shareowners while being mindful of our overall responsibilities. 6)Productivity: Managing our
people, time and money for greatest effectiveness” (Coca-Cola Company, 2013, p.31). Therefore, Coca-
Cola Company takes the GVC approaches to the environmental investments.
However, it is important to point out that Coca-Cola Company also briefly touches the idea of
shared responsibility (GPG code) and conservation (GPG code) in 2013-2014 Sustainability report. The
report states “we are committed to help responsibly manage our climate impacts” (Coca-Cola Company,
2014, p.63) and “...we are partnering with other businesses, civil society organisations and governments
to support cooperative action on this critical issue” (Coca-Cola Company, 2014, p.63). Moreover, they
started interacting with the government on the topic of climate change mitigation and submitted a
statement of their commitment, which can be found in “Coca-Cola was the beverage sponsor of the
Caring for Climate (C4C) Business Forum, convened by the U.N. Global Compact during COP19 in
Warsaw, the annual U.N. Climate Change Conference (Conference of Parties) in 2013. At this event,

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Coca-Cola introduced a statement from the Refrigerants” (Coca-Cola Company, 2014, p.68). Although
the motivation of their statement is to expand their partnership, to gain public interests and to increase
the size of the value chain, it is possible to state that in recent years, Coca-Cola Company started
adopting the GPG approaches in their projects and investment mechanism compared to the past.
Therefore, although the GVC approach is still the mainstream, the Coca-Cola Company starts mixing its
approaches with the GPG approach.
By analyzing three reports of the Coca-Cola Company, it is possible to find a unique trend from
the GVC to the mix of GVC and GPG approach. Their focus includes cost reduction, waste management
and expansion of the partnership, and in recent years the company starts showing an interest in social
responsibility and facilitation of the cooperative framework in climate change. However, the GVC
approach is still primary in the Coca-Cola Company. The rationales of their approaches are to use the
environmental investment for market expansion, efficiency, profit generation, stronger and bigger
partnership and corporate social responsibility (CSR). This motivation is apparent because the Coca-Cola
Company is a private sector pursuing further economic opportunities and profits for themselves. At the
same time, the public awareness for company’s responsibility on environmental conservation is rising
today, which might move them toward the GPG approach as well.
UNILEVER
Unilever is one of the leading transnational consumer goods company in the world, controlling
different brands in the personal care, foods, refreshments and home care sectors. Originally based in
the UK and the Netherlands, now its products have important market shares in the Global South as well
as in the industrialized countries. For this analysis, three reports were selected:
1. Unilever Sustainable Living Plan Progress Report 2011 (Unilever, 2012)
2. Unilever Sustainable Living Plan 2013 (Unilever 2014b)
3. Annual Report and Accounts 2013 (Unilever 2014a)
For the convenience, each report is abbreviated to the 2011 Sustainability Report, 2013
Sustainability Report and 2013 Annual Report.
In 2010, Unilever launched Unilever Sustainable Living Plan, an ambitious set of goals for the
company, touching upon many environmental goals, such as “By 2020 water abstraction by our global
factory network will be at or below 2008 levels, despite significantly higher volumes.” The 2011

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Sustainability Report examines whether Unilever is on track with these goals, and so does the 2013
Sustainability Report, which keeps exactly the same framework and orientation. The 2013 Annual Report,
in its part concerned with the environment, largely echoes the sustainability reports. Hence, all three
reports are commented together.
Unilever’s environmental sustainability strategy focuses on the value chains they participate in,
not only paying attention to their internal processes but also considering the origin of raw materials and
the impact by the end user in consumption process. Their targets include greenhouse gasses emissions,
water use and waste generated. They notice, for instance, that with products such as soap, an important
share of energy and water consumption happens during the shower, not in their part of the value chain.
As transnational concern, Unilever is very often the leading enterprise in the GVC of its products.
In the analysis presented in the sustainability report, they are taking responsibility for each segment of
the value chain and declare the intention of targeting the entire value chain with measures favoring
sustainability.
Unilever presents the environmental issues clearly following the GVC framework and its
proposed, partially realized, interventions follow the GVC approach in that most of the time they
contribute to upgrading the respective GVC for Unilever. This is evident in this two examples from the
2013 Sustainability Report: “By reducing waste in energy, raw materials and so on, we create efficiencies
and cut costs, which helps to improve our margins” (Unilever, 2014b, p. 4), more concretely, “in 2013
we launched smaller, ‘compressed’ deodorant sprays [that] use half the propellant, around 25% less
aluminum packaging and a third less road transport” (Unilever, 2014b, p. 5). These are considered a
reference to eco-efficiency, as the quotes highlight the reduced consumption of materials and transport
capacity. This is an environmentally friendly measure taken under the GVC approach.
At the same time, Unilever targets emissions and water usage also outside their organisation.
They declare: “We have set greenhouse gas reduction targets across our value chain – from sourcing,
manufacturing, transport and refrigeration all the way through to consumer use of our Products.” It is
for instance revealed that in the value chain of soap, the vast majority of the emissions occur with the
hot water used together with the soap while taking a shower (Unilever, 2012, p. 18). This shows a high
level of consciousness for the GVC. While efforts towards diminishing the quantity of water used by its
customers do not appear to immediately ameliorate Unilever’s position in the GVC or otherwise
constitute a GVC upgrade, these efforts are still counted as environmental measures following the GVC

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approach, since they closely follow the idea of GVC. Similarly, it can be said for the efforts of Unilever
towards sourcing all inputs from sustainable sources.
It is possible to say that Unilever reports are almost totally written in the GVC logics. The most
cited motivation for the measures proposed is cutting costs and reducing waste of materials and waste
generation. Other rationales mentioned include: profitability, guaranteeing the availability of inputs, the
desirability of sustainability certificates for certain market segments, and also managing the supply chain
risk.

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RESULTS
This section will answer seven empirical research questions by applying the results from the
analysis on four different actors: ADB, KfW, Coca-Cola Company and Unilever.
1. DO SELECTED ORGANISATIONS FOLLOW THE GPG OR GVC APPROACHES FOR GREEN
INVESTMENT?
The dominant approach to the environmental protection across the four chosen organisations is
the GVC approach. This result is not surprising because the two enterprises are profit oriented, and the
two banks also need to make sure that their investments on projects have returns. However, it is
interesting to note that Coca-Cola Company started to incorporate the GPG approach in recent years,
such as a submission of recommendation on climate change mitigation. This might be due to the
increased public interest in companies’ social responsibilities and its impacts on their sales.
2. HOW ARE THE DISCOURSES OF ORGANISATIONS JUSTIFYING OR ILLUSTRATING THIS
EXPENDITURE?
One of the dominant justification for endeavors in the GVC approach is cutting costs. The
measures implemented under this rationale should decrease the quantity of energy and amount of
material needed for a given value added. Diminishing waste disposal also cuts costs. In other occasions,
the importance of more sustainable production processes is directly justified with expected profitability.
3. WHAT ARE THE RATIONALES BEHIND THE GPG AND GVC APPROACHES?
Eco-efficiency is the most present rationale for the GVC approach. It pairs benefits for the
environment, as it implies less use and less waste of resources (energy, materials), with decreasing
variable costs in the GVC, which imply profit in the long run. In many cases, it also implies a decrease in
greenhouse emissions.
Another primary rationale for the GVC approaches is securing the flow of inputs or mitigating
risk of supply chain failure. Production is embedded in the natural setting and needs a set of inputs from
it. The GVC approaches targeting suppliers and inputs seek to ensure a continuous and visible availability
of the original natural inputs to the value chain.
A less ubiquitous, but still present, rationale is the one of expansion of markets through
sustainability certification and branding, a rationale based on the assumption of a correspondent

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demand for such certified and labeled products. The rationales for the measures that fit the GPG
approach are fewer across the documents examined and often concern the climate change and the
pressing need for mitigation efforts.
4. ARE THE ORGANISATIONS SHIFTING THEIR FOCUS FROM THE GPG TO GVC APPROACHES?
ADB and KfW showed an apparent shift in their focus from the GPG to GVC approaches
(ex.green growth), while Coca-Cola added the GPG approach (climate change mitigation, reduction of
HFC gas) to their traditional GVC approaches (efficiency in suppliers) on green investments in recent
years. Unilever did not show a shift in their approach (GVC), but it was observed over a shorter span of
time. Overall, there is a general shift from the GPG to GCV approaches in the selected organisations.
5. HOW DO THE FLOWS OF EXPENDITURES FOLLOWING GPG AND GVC APPROACHES COMPARE
TO EACH OTHER?
In both sustainability and annual reports for all actors, they do not separate green investments
into different categories. Because of this, it is difficult to separate their green investments into the GPG
and GVC, but it is still possible to assume that each actor spends more on the GVC approaches. In the
case of Unilever for instance, there is no mention of projects that can clearly be classified as GPG, so it is
possible to assume that all expenses in environmentally positive measures happened following the GVC
approach.
6. DO ORGANISATIONS IN THE PUBLIC SECTOR EXHIBIT DIFFERENT PATTERNS THAN THOSE IN
THE PRIVATE?
The primary trend in green investments for public sectors (ADB and KfW) was the GPG approach
in the past, and then those sectors became a strong advocate of the GVC approach in recent years. For
private sectors (the Coca-Cola Company and Unilever), they traditionally applied the GVC approaches on
the green investments, so that there are no vivid shifts in their approaches and rationales for
environmental protection. Therefore, the shifts in public sectors are more dynamic, which creates
different patterns in shifts between public and private sectors.

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DISCUSSION
LIMITATION
This research paper has several limitations to consider. First, the selected sample is very small
(only four organisations) so that the result from this sample may be biased by its choice. Moreover, only
three reports are selected from each organisation to investigate the flow in green investments, and this
is also considered as a lack in numbers of samples which can cause biases in the result. Because of these
factors, it is necessary to be careful for generalizing the findings on this research paper. Secondly,
because codes in QDA method are chosen by researchers, and quotes coded are based on individual
researcher’s interpretation on reports, there might be researchers’ biases on certain environmental
topics and organisations. Finally, since it is difficult to precisely separate the nature of GPG and GVC,
and some environmental projects mix both approaches, the results from each organisation are not
exactly possible to conclude as a definite answer.
In order to see the exact trends in environmental investments and enhance the transferability of
this research, it is necessary to increase the sample actors and reports, which would also reduce the
level of possible biases. Also, the selection of organisations can be improved by increasing the number
of both private and public sector (not development banks, since their interests are more likely on
economic growth in the region).
IMPLICATIONS
The GVC approaches seem to be taking an advantage over the more traditional GPG approach
associated with natural reserves and plain biodiversity preservation. The very vast majority of the efforts
happening in the GVC approach appear, according to the statements of the same actors, primarily
motivated by plain profitability or, in a better case, sustainable economic growth. Some of these
measures are clearly nothing more than implementations of new technologies that increase economic
efficiency, hence measures that theoretically would have been taken by profit-maximizing actors even in
the absence of environmental concerns. If so, featuring this kind of upgrades in the sustainability reports
can be seen as a public relations operation.
The exception is the GVC efforts that target on the behavior of the consumer for the sake of
greening the GVC, such as when Unilever campaigns for their customers to use less hot water while

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washing. In this case the operation directly inspired by the GVC analysis is effectively directed at
providing the global public goods of climate change mitigation.
The empirical question at hand is in a scenario where all organisations work according to the
GVC approach, whether all the GPG would be protected or not. It is clear that some GPG can gain
protection as a result of GVC efforts. However, it is not clear whether this level of protection can be
optimal or whether all GPG can benefit of such configurations. Presumably there are GPG that do not
benefit of any GVC scheme.
As for-profit corporations are more or less bound to GVC if they want to invest important sums
in the environment, intuitively the protection of GPG is a task that stays with the non-profit, non-
commercial organisations such as WWF. When organisations such as ADB or KfW retreat from there,
they may leave a gap to fill in the efforts between the GPG and GVC approaches.
However, this does not mean that WWF should stick to GPG projects. It is namely possible to put
efforts into specially tailored GVC propositions that can appeal to the private sector while benefitting
some GPG and try to gain financial support from actors that would not otherwise directly donate for
GPG.
CONCLUSION
The objectives of this research project are: 1) to identify global trends in green investments, 2)
to observe whether there is a shift from a traditional "global public goods" (GPG) approach to a "global
value chain" (GVC) approach, and 3) to understand the rationales behind the trends. In order to satisfy
these objectives, reports from four organisations (ADB, KfW, Coca-Cola Company and Unilever) were
selected and investigated. After applying the Qualitative Document Analysis as a methodology, we
found that the GVC approaches are the mainstream. This result gives an implication for non-commercial
actors, such as WWF, to fill the gaps in disproportional green investments in GPG and GVC.

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