Capitalism, the sustainability crisis and the limitations of current business governance

This book investigates the limitations of corporate governance and some
related business laws, and their potential reform in furthering environmentally
sustainable development, or ‘sustainability’, as this term is more
conveniently known. The central idea is that promoting sustainability
cannot be left solely to corporate volunteerism, but also requires enabling
legal frameworks that go beyond conventional environmental regulation
to ensconce within company law the necessary standards and procedures.
While the book is strongly motivated by the threat of global climate
change, which challenges the traditional assumptions and purpose of
business enterprise over the long term, along withmany other domains of
human endeavour, a range of other environmental problems such as the
loss of biodiversity also suggests that a different approach to business
activity is needed. Arising from the work of the Sustainable Companies
Project, led by Professor Beate Sj°afjell at the University of Oslo,1 this volume
offersmulti-jurisdictional perspectives fromscholars of business and
environmental law. Over eight chapters, a mosaic of analyses, spanning
company law, accounting standards, and financial markets regulation,
identify both the barriers to and the opportunities to promote sustainability
in the context of corporations and their financial investors. The
book concludes with some ideas to further ‘sustainable companies’, a
phrase intended to capture the ideal of corporations and other business
entities acting within environmentally sustainable parameters. The focus
of the book is to deepen our understanding of the barriers to creating
sustainable companies, rather than outlining a blueprint for reform.