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In the 1930s, chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) were developed as safe, non-reactive alternatives to toxic and explosive refrigerants and propellants such as ammonia, chloromethane, and sulfur dioxide. American engineer Thomas Midgley famously demonstrated these properties by inhaling Freon (CFC-12) and blowing out a candle with it. He was presented with many awards for his discoveries, such as the Perkin, Priestley, and William Gibbs medals. In today's jargon, CFCs might have been called an eco-innovation, because they provided solutions to several environmental issues. However, CFCs solved environmental problems by creating others. In 1974, Sherwood Rowland and Mario Molina published their pathbreaking research that demonstrated CFCs were depleting the ozone layer. In 1989, the Montreal Protocol, which regulates a global phaseout of CFCs, entered into force. A few years later, in 1995, Rowland and Molina received the Nobel Price in Chemistry. The new substitutes for CFCs, hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), have no known effects on the ozone layer but are extremely potent greenhouse gases (GHGs) and thus subject to the Kyoto Protocol.

This teaching case intends to be a tool for academic purposes as a way to show the different assessments an investor should make and the many problems he/she may face, when evaluating a megaproject. It reviews the experience of two large corporations in Chile, intending to build a major hydroelectric generation project in Chile while facing major opposition from environmental NGOs and other stakeholders. Although in the view of many industry experts and consultants Hidroaysén was a good and necessary project, the environmental implications and some of the project’s stakeholders created a deadlock.

This teaching case was written with the idea of being used as a tool for classes in order to discuss the implications of environmental issues in big projects. The research was based on particular information of the project, financial data of the companies involved, and other public sources (news, interviews, etc.).

The conclusion of this case is that private initiatives, without the right alignment of political actors and civil society, could face the risk of being blocked and not being executed.

COP21 guidelines for responsive investment could be a guideline to follow, aligning private interest with development for countries in the third world.

We offer a way to analyze external impacts on a project of this kind, that using a common framework (COP21 guidelines) could avoid risks taking all considerations into the project.

This chapter presents a South American perspective on the environmental and financial sustainability of energy integration incorporating recent financial lessons from the United States and Europe. An illustrative project called UNASUR-GRID is presented to highlight new thinking on funding ecologically sensitive development (post-carbon electricity generation) and regional energy sovereignty via a new regional development bank for the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR) called Bank of the South, Banco del Sur (BDS) ^1,2 . Sustainable BDS finance rules are presented that aim to break the link between development funding, environmental damage, and sovereign debt owed to banks outside the region, tapping into alternative finances to buffer the region against changes in global financial flows from core nations in the Great Recession.

The author attended presidential meetings of MERCOSUR and UNASUR supplementing this with presidential declarations comparing these with ongoing development planning from IIRSA, also interviewing a COSIPLAN representative. He also cooperated (as an independent researcher) with the Ecuadorian Central Bank research group called ‘New Architectures for Regional Finance’ (NAFR) and conducted technical interviews at South American energy institutes specialising in integration.

Development finance must reflect changes in both energy supply and demand while replacing fossil fuel inputs in electricity generation. Demand planning is necessary to attain sovereignty over a post-carbon electricity supply while maintaining dependability.

Successful energy cooperation is more than just energy infrastructure (UNASUR-GRID), cross-border confidence building is also required, reinforced by commercial treaties for energy exports and imports. Public and private national and regional energy companies need real incentives to trade internationally (improving competition) or renationalisation of supply and distribution may be necessary.

Highly original, this chapter incorporates government, UN and civil NGO inputs into primary research. BDS policy sources include government, ministerial and presidential speeches with interviews and participation in meetings with social movements. For indigenous ecological and social economic concepts such as Sumak Kawsay, the author has travelled extensively in South America and was an active participant at the first World People’s Conference on Climate Change and the 2010 Rights of Mother Earth (World Conference on Indigenous Peoples, 2014) in Cochabamba, Bolivia, along with ecologists and tribal representatives.

The publicly listed company, Sea Breeze Power Corp., had its origin in 1990 through a private company called Powerhouse Developments. This company eventually went public through a reverse takeover (RTO), and the new name for the public company was Powerhouse Energy Inc. Powerhouse Developments became a wholly owned subsidiary of the parent company and was purely devoted to developing run-of-river hydroelectric projects. Paul Manson personally became involved through helping the company with the RTO. The original private company, Powerhouse Developments, had been a partnership between a California Investor out of the Central Valley, named Chase Hoffman, and a local man from British Columbia. They had met each other through the real estate business in Hawaii. During this time, Manson was working with the company as a consultant. However, in 2000, there was a falling out between Hoffman and his partner, so Manson was asked to move from purely being a consultant with the company to taking on the title of Corporate Secretary. He was effectively the General Manager, and along with a hydroelectric engineer (Bill Harmond) who had been hired, took over management of the company. Hoffman remained an investor, and Harmond and Manson formed the new management team.

This study aims to explore capability upgrading of EMNE’s subsidiaries in developed countries and how the parent-subsidiary relationship influences such upgrading.

The study adopts an interdisciplinary approach to capability upgrading of EMNEs subsidiaries in developed countries. It employs a single case study to explore this under-research area.

The analysis challenges the orthodox view and suggests broad-based capability upgrading has taken place in the EMNE-acquired subsidiaries ranging from product, process, functional to intersectoral. In addition, the capability upgrading was contingent on the degree of subsidiary autonomy and subsidiary mandates.

This study represents one of the first to examine capability upgrading and parent-subsidiary relationship in the context of EMNEs’ internationalisation activities.