The Societal Company: Sustainability, Shareholder Value, and European Company Law

Many attempts have been made to reduce the harms caused by business and to make companies become socially responsible. This book approaches the subject from a new perspective arguing that reflexive law offers the best means to align the interests of large companies with those of society and that recent developments in European company law fit a reflexive model. A reflexive company law, rather than trying to directly regulate companies, aims to affect internal decision-making processes to make companies responsive to outside interests and prevent them from operating as closed systems singularly focused on shareholder value. In this vein, the EU has recently imposed new obligations on companies to develop corporate sustainability reporting and due diligence processes as part of its objective to create a climate-neutral and sustainable economy. This book presents an argument for how the ‘societal company’ – a company that has an internal culture of transnational responsibility to do no harm but that retains the autonomy necessary to be economically productive – can be established through reflexive law. The book will appeal to researchers, policy makers and lawyers interested in corporate sustainability, regulatory theory, company law and EU law.