Corporate legitimacy in risk society: the case of Brent Spar

The aim of this paper is to understand what lessons on corporate legitimacy can be drawn from the Shell – Greenpeace conflict in 1995 about the dumping of the Brent Spar oil storage platform in the North-East Atlantic. Based on theories of corporate legitimacy and risk society, it is argued that the Brent Spar conflict reflects a new balance between business, government and civil society as well as a radicalization of the requirements for corporate legitimacy. As a part of these new and more demanding requirements, corporations will need to address a much broader scope of responsibilities and a wider circle of stakeholders than suggested so far by theories of stakeholder management. In addition, corporations will need to develop new and trustworthy forms of dialogue with the public. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.