Due diligence on trial: What can corporate sustainability due diligence regulation deliver for people, the climate and nature?

Corporate sustainability due diligence has emerged as one of the most significant and contested regulatory innovations of the past decade.

The EU’s Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD), alongside national laws in France, Germany and beyond, legally required companies to identify, prevent and mitigate harmful human rights and environmental impacts across their operations and supply chain?

But is due diligence regulation enough? Can such regulation itself cause harm?

The Sustainability Regulation Observatory (SRO) at LSE’s Global School of Sustainability invites you to Due Diligence on Trial — a mock trial event that puts corporate sustainability due diligence in the dock, examining its value, its limitations, and whether it can deliver the systemic change that people, the climate and nature urgently require. Prosecutors, defence counsel and independent witnesses will argue the case before a judge, with the audience acting as the live jury and casting their verdict.

A drinks reception will follow the event.

Speakers:

For the prosecution:

Kate Levick — Associate Director, E3G. Arguing that corporate sustainability due diligence, even at its strongest, falls structurally short of what the climate and nature emergencies require.

Prof. Dr. Galina Kolev-Schaefer — Senior Economist, German Economic Institute (IW Köln) and Economics Professor at TH Köln (Technische Hochschule Köln) Charge: Harmful — presenting the economic critique of due diligence as a regulatory tool.

For the defence:

Sarah-Jane Denton — Director, Operational Risk and Environment, Travers Smith

Phil Bloomer - Former Strategic Advisor, Business and Human Rights Centre, Ex Campaigns and Policy Director at Oxfam

Independent Witness:

Colleen Theron – Founder and CEO of Ardea International, Lawyer, Expert in sustainability, business and human rights, and modern slavery.

Richard Howitt — Strategic Adviser on Corporate Responsibility, Sustainability and Business and Human Rights; Senior Associate, Frank Bold.

Judge and Chair:

Prof. Veerle Heyvaert — Professor, LSE Law School; founding Editor-in-Chief of Transnational Environmental Law; Associate Dean, LSE Law School

After the Event

Insights from the discussion will feed directly into the SRO’s ongoing research programme. A short blog will be published following the event, and the proceedings will inform a major policy brief examining the role, value and limitations of corporate sustainability due diligence compared with other regulatory tools for advancing human rights and sustainable development.

More Information

The Sustainability Regulation Observatory (SRO) is a new LSE initiative, housed within the Global School of Sustainability (GSoS). Building on expertise across the LSE Law School, the Grantham Research Institute, International Relations and other departments, the SRO serves as a convening hub that bridges research, policy, and practice. Drawing on world-leading expertise across LSE, the SRO analyses sustainability regulation worldwide, generates research and analysis to inform how sustainability regulation can be designed and reformed. It publishes policy analysis based on rigorous research, and convenesgovernments, regulators, businesses, civil society, and researchers around its findings.

LSE Law School is one of the world’s elite law schools with an internationally respected faculty. It offers a uniquely diverse international community which attracts leading academics and talented students from all over the world.

The Global School of Sustainability at LSE (GSoS) is the interdisciplinary centre for sustainability research impact at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE). GSoS works in partnerships to advance pioneering sustainability research, global policy engagement and world-leading educational opportunities. Grounded in LSE’s interdisciplinary excellence across the social sciences, GSoS’s global networks target the systemic challenges to sustainability embedded in the world’s economies, politics and societies.

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