A Green Image on a Murky River: Bayer, the Rhine, and Transnational Environmental Regulation, 1960s–1980s
Year: 2025
Type: article
Abstract: This article examines the complex role of Bayer AG in shaping environmental politics along the Rhine River between the 1960s and 1980s, highlighting the ambivalence of corporate environmentalism. Drawing on archival materials, it analyzes how Bayer as a multinational concern both contributed to and resisted environmental reform during a period of intensifying public pressure and regulatory development. While the company made substantial investments in wastewater treatment and pollution control technologies, these measures were often accompanied public relations campaigns designed to present Bayer as a responsible environmental actor. The article situates Bayer’s actions within broader international trends, showing how German industry adopted comparatively early and ambitious communication strategies, often in response to mounting public and political pressure. It explores Bayer’s rhetorical emphasis on technological limits and shared societal responsibility to deflect blame for pollution, while simultaneously undermining calls for stricter regulation. Integrating approaches from environmental history, corporate communication, and legal studies, the article foregrounds the Rhine as an active participant in environmental governance and public discourse, challenging purely anthropocentric narratives and exposing the contested terrain of industrial legitimacy, regulation, and ecological responsibility.
Source: The International History Review
Author: Anna Corsten
Institution: Friedrich Schiller University Jena
Language: English
Subfield: History
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: hybrid
OpenAlex ID: W4414262392