For stakeholders seeking to convince firms to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions, understanding firm responsiveness to the issues presented by global climate change is critical to preventing the worst effects from taking place. This paper examines the conditions in which firms are likely to enact new carbon emissions reduction projects in response to two different types of firm assessments: those emphasizing the moral necessity of taking action, and those stressing the pragmatic benefits that accrue to firms who reduce their carbon footprint. We find that while firm assessments anchored in moral concerns are a strong predictor of the number of new carbon emissions reduction projects that are implemented, they are not a strong predictor of the amount of actual emissions that are reduced. Instead, it is firm evaluations rooted in pragmatic benefits to the firm that have a strong impact on reducing the amount of greenhouse gas emissions that firms emit.
