Multilateral actor-to-actor (A2A) networks, exhibited and commonplace in Scandinavia, are considered key to effective environmental CSR implementation and organisational success. This research investigates the proposed Scandinavian cooperative advantage within the construction industry in order to better understand: A) if the contextual conditions of a country affect environmental CSR uptake; b) if construction companies exhibit environmental CSR-practices differently in discrete contexts; c) the role of stakeholder collaborations for explicit (soft-law) environmental CSR uptake and competitive advantage. With Sweden and Scotland as representative examples of two different contexts within and beyond Scandinavia, the results indicate that the contextual conditions of a country affect the perceptions, and likelihood, of environmental CSR uptake from both organisational and customer perspectives. However, it remains unclear as to whether stakeholder collaborations and A2A networks, traditional within Scandinavian societies, actually influence environmental CSR uptake more so than in external contexts. © 2017 Inderscience Enterprises Ltd.