Germany’s corporate sector divided on potential impact of future climate policy – survey

The possible impact of the next German government's climate policy is dividing the corporate sector into two equally strong camps, according to a survey of 200 companiesin Deutsche Bank Research’s latest Deutschland Monitor. On climate policy, 50 percent expressed concern that the next government’s climate protection measures would have a negative impact on their businesses. Among that half, 90 percent expect higher energy and electricity prices, while 71 percent believe investments that will not pay off in the short term will be necessary. Planning and investment security remain core concerns due to the corporate sector’s long investment horizon. Of this subgroup, about half, including large parts of the service sector, is not concerned about Germany’s global competitive position and could even become the first providers in the green transformation, the report points out.

In the other more optimistic half, 70 percent do not expect any substantial risks in the development of costs and their competitive position, with 40 percent even anticipating climate measures to increase demand for their products and believing that negative financial effects would be cushioned by subsidies and the timely adjustment of corporate strategies. On a possible partnership between Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservative CDU/CSU alliance and the Greens, 85 percent responded that such a coalition would bring changes, with 42 percent associating this with “a long overdue restructuring of the German industrial landscape” and 39 percent seeing the possibility of a state investment programme that would also benefit the corporate sector. A roughly equal proportion of respondents fear a decline in the competitiveness of Germany as an industrial location and a debt-financed expansion of the welfare state through a CDU/CSU-Green coalition.