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 at the German Economic Institute (IW Köln). Presenting the economic critique of due diligence as a regulatory tool.

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

For the defence:

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

More Information

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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