Uniting business history and global environmental history INTRODUCTION

This article introduces the contributions in the special issue and explains its aims. It observes that scholars in both environmental and business history are increasingly interested with the question of how knowledge flows over long distances, which is the central theme of this special issue. The introduction also serves to establish the relevance of the contributions to academics who research environmental knowledge management'. Although this term did not exist during any of the historical periods covered by the contributions in this special issue, the firms discussed here were nevertheless engaged in this complicated task.