Although the automobile industry has served as the backbone of much business history scholarship, business historians have paid little attention to this industry’s actions concerning the complex of environmental issues that took hold in the 1960s. Volvo represents a captivating case study to gain insight into why the automobile industry’s growth has been difficult to align with the shift toward environmental sustainability. Although Volvo pioneered the exhaust emission control technology on the U.S. market in the 1970s and gained an international reputation for high environmental and safety standards in the decades that followed, the company was unable to seriously address climate change in the 1990s. This article identifies several key factors impacting the automobile industry’s passive response to environmental challenges—for instance, weak and asymmetric emission control regulations on international markets, consumer preferences for larger cars (SUVs) in the 1990s, and a lack of systematic regulatory pressure to shift from fossil fuels and the internal combustion engine. In the case of Volvo, world leadership in safety standards, rather than low carbon emissions, constituted the company’s competitive advantage as climate change emerged as one of the most critical environmental issues in the 1990s.

尽管汽车行业一直是许多商业史研究的支柱，但商业史学家很少关注该行业在 1960 年代就复杂的环境问题采取的行动。沃尔沃代表了一个引人入胜的案例研究，以深入了解为什么汽车行业的增长难以与向环境可持续性的转变保持一致。尽管沃尔沃在 1970 年代率先在美国市场推出了废气排放控制技术，并在随后的几十年中以高环境和安全标准赢得了国际声誉，但该公司在 1990 年代未能认真应对气候变化。本文确定了影响汽车行业对环境挑战的被动响应的几个关键因素——例如，国际市场上薄弱且不对称的排放控制法规，1990 年代消费者对大型汽车 (SUV) 的偏好，以及缺乏从化石燃料和内燃机转向的系统性监管压力。就沃尔沃而言，随着气候变化在 1990 年代成为最关键的环境问题之一，安全标准而非低碳排放方面的世界领先地位构成了该公司的竞争优势。