Company Law and Sustainability
：Legal Barriers and Opportunities
Publication subTitle ：Legal Barriers and Opportunities
Author： Beate Sjåfjell;Benjamin J. Richardson;
Publisher： Cambridge University Press
Publication year： 2015
E-ISBN: 9781316911204
P-ISBN(Paperback): 9781107043275
P-ISBN(Hardback): 9781107043275
Subject： D91 Legal departments;D922.291.91 企业法、公司法
Keyword： 法律
Language： ENG
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Description
Advances an innovative, multi-jurisdictional argument for the necessity of company law reform to reorient companies towards environmental sustainability. Business law, and above all company law, must be transformed to encourage environmentally responsible business. This book highlights the inadequacies of both environmental law and voluntary corporate social responsibility. Its suggestions for reform and its multinational scope makes it essential reading for scholars, policy-makers and business managers worldwide. Business law, and above all company law, must be transformed to encourage environmentally responsible business. This book highlights the inadequacies of both environmental law and voluntary corporate social responsibility. Its suggestions for reform and its multinational scope makes it essential reading for scholars, policy-makers and business managers worldwide. This investigation of the barriers to and opportunities for promoting environmental sustainability in company law provides an in-depth comparative analysis of company law regimes across the world. The social norm of shareholder primacy is the greatest barrier preventing progress, and it also helps explain why voluntary action by companies and investors is insufficient. By deconstructing the myth that shareholder primacy has a legal basis and challenging the economic postulates on which mainstream corporate governance debate is based, Company Law and Sustainability reveals a surprisingly large unexplored potential within current company law regimes for companies to reorient themselves towards sustainability. It also suggests possible methods of reforming the existing legal infrastructure for companies and provides an important contribution to the broader debate on how to achieve sustainability. List of contributors; Foreword; Preface; 1. Capitalism, the sustainability crisis and the limitations of current business governance Benjamin J. Richardson and Beate Sjåfjell; 2. Corporate social responsibility and environmental sustainability David Millon; 3. Shareholder primacy: the main barrier to sustainable companies Beate Sjåfjell, Andrew Johnston, Linn Anker-Sørensen and David Millon; 4. The role of board directors in promoting environmental sustainability Blanaid Clarke; 5. Accounting, auditing and reporting: supporting or obstructing the sustainable companies objective? Charlotte Villiers and Jukka Mähönen; 6. Financial markets and socially responsible investing Benjamin J. Richardson; 7. Limits to corporate reform and alternative legal structures Carol Liao; 8. The future for company law and sustainability Beate Sjåfjell and Benjamin J. Richardson; Index. 'Company law has typically been seen as a dry and technical subject principally of interest to the community of lawyers. Traditionally its aim has been to create legal certainty for companies themselves in their relations with each other in the marketplace, and to define and combat corrupt, fraudulent or other criminal acts by individuals using company structures to shield their behaviour. This book takes a completely different perspective, analysing how company law is being and can be used as a vital tool to combat new collective threats in the world including climate change, social disintegration and conflict. It is partly a response to the successes, but also the limitations, of movements towards corporate social and environmental responsibility in the last twenty years, that have largely been pursued through a ran
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