Corporate Law and Sustainability from the Next Generation of Lawyers

Carol Liao

• Publisher: McGill-Queen's University Press
• Year: 2022
• Print ISBN:
  9780228011316
• eBook ISBN:
  9780228013105
• Topic: Law
• Subtopic: Law Theory & Practice
• Index: Law

Millennials have come of age in an era when environmental and social crises have defined much of their adult lives, as has the recurrent message that time is of the essence. Future generations will bear the greatest burden created by climate change, pandemics, and inequality, but often they are not in positions of power to make impactful decisions about it.

This book gives voice to young lawyers offering new critical perspectives in the burgeoning field of corporate law and sustainability. Climate change is an intergenerational crisis, and the solutions and path forward must include intergenerational voices. Millennials are rising in power at a critical juncture in our climate and corporate history, and their perspectives stand apart from those who have been trained into myopic views of what constitutes change. These essays challenge the status quo across a number of pressing topics, including executive compensation, board diversity, decolonialization, crowdfunding, social media risk, corporate lobbying, shareholder activism, tax avoidance, global supply chain management, and human rights, written with a level of thoughtfulness and urgency that demands attention from policymakers and scholars alike.

Edited by Carol Liao, a leading expert in the field, and with a foreword by author and filmmaker of The Corporation and The New Corporation Joel Bakan, this book offers timeless research from a diverse group of young lawyers calling for bona fide corporate accountability within legal and regulatory frameworks, including innovative ideas for reform.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Copyright
• Contents
• Foreword
• Acknowledgments
• Abbreviations
• INTRODUCTION The Millennial Generation and the Post-pandemic Future of Corporate Law and Sustainability
• PART ONE Governing and Financing Responsible Business
• 1 Reconciling Corporate Social Responsibility with Executive Compensation
• 2 Decolonizing and Reinvigorating Economic Development in Indigenous Communities Through Cooperative Ownership
• 3 Gender Diversity on Corporate Boards: Much Ado About Mandatory Quotas?
• 4 Crowdfunding for Social Impact Bonds: A Theoretical Solution to Difficulties in Practice
• PART TWO CSR as Risk Management in Industry Practice
• 5 Bell, Let’s Talk About Reputational Risk and Opportunity
• 6 Elephants Among Chickens: Responsible Lobbying and the Fossil Fuel Industry in the Transition to Net-Zero
• 7 Reparations or Reputation: The Paradox of CSR and the Alcohol Industry
• 8 Behind the Veil: An Analysis of Fast Fashion Retailers’ Engagement with Sustainable Supply Chain Management
• PART THREE Corporate Accountability and Regulation
• 9 The Return of Robin Hood: A New Kind of Shareholder Activism
• 10 Avoiding Tax Avoidance as the Socially Responsible Thing to Do
• 11 Closing the Accountability Gap?Early Lessons from the Canadian Ombudsperson for Responsible Enterprise
• 12 The Search for Corporate Accountability in Transnational Business and Human Rights
• Contributors
• Index