Companies and Climate Change
Theory and Law in the United Kingdom

Company law can and should act as a bridge (rather than a barrier) to progressive corporate climate action.

Lisa Benjamin (Author)

9781108484671, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 29 April 2021

250 pages
23.5 x 16 x 2 cm, 0.5 kg

'I gladly endorse Lisa Benjamin's Companies and Change: Theory and Law in the United Kingdom. Lisa's grasp of the science of climate change and the intertwined legal complexity of corporate governance is formidable. This volume is a vital tool allowing policy makers to understand the structures of companies and how the economic and legal structures of companies can be reformed, in domestic jurisdictions and globally. This monograph is pellucid, it challenges the dominant discourse of profit maximisation in companies and Multinational Enterprises leading to the climate emergency. The books advocates a range of solutions including different models for business and involving financiers to invest their capital into renewable technology. The book is passionate and simultaneously academically rigorous. A wonderful piece of writing.' Janet Dine, Professor of International Economic Development Law, Queen Mary University of London

Companies lie at the heart of the climate crisis and are both culpable for, and vulnerable to, its impacts. Rising social and investor concern about the escalating risks of climate change are changing public and investor expectations of businesses and, as a result, corporate approaches to climate change. Dominant corporate norms that put shareholders (and their wealth maximization) at the heart of company law are viewed by many as outdated and in need of reform. Companies and Climate Change analyzes these developments by assessing the regulation and pressures that impact energy companies in the UK, with lessons that apply worldwide. In this work, Lisa Benjamin shows how the Paris Agreement, climate and energy law in the EU and the UK, and transnational human rights and climate litigation, are regulatory and normative developments that illustrate how company law can and should act as a bridge to progressive corporate climate action.

1. Introduction
2. Theorizing the Company in the Context of Climate Change
3. English Company Law and Climate Change
4. International and Transnational Climate Change Law and Policies
5. Domestic Climate and Energy Regulation
6. Companies, Human Rights and Climate Litigation
7. Fiscal Barriers and Incentives to Corporate Climate Action
8. Conclusion.

Subject Areas: Environment law [LNKJ], Company law [LNCD], Corporate governance [KJR]