Persuasive innovators for environmental policy: green business influence through technology-based arguing

Green industries and companies provide crucial political support for ambitious environmental policy. In this article, I examine through which mechanisms green business interests influence international environmental negotiations. I theorize technology-based arguing as an influence mechanism that builds on combined technological and discursive power and can outstrip relational and structural business power rooted in material resources. I probe these propositions in a process-tracing case study of new wastewater regulations for ships in the Baltic Sea negotiated in the Helsinki Commission and International Maritime Organization. I find that green business built, expanded, and sustained state support for ambitious nutrient removal standards by persuasively arguing that advanced treatment was feasible. Provision of tangible evidence of technology development, availability, and uptake undermined the influence of reluctant and materially superior business interests. I conclude that even small green business actors can facilitate ambitious environmental policy when communication channels between innovators and policymakers are strong.