The climate liabilities and duties of company directors will be discussed by a group of international experts in Oxford on Wednesday 8 June.
ClientEarth CEO James Thornton, senior lawyer Alice Garton and lawyer David Cooke will speak at the first Commonwealth Climate and Law Initiative (CCLI) symposium, which will bring together leaders from the fields of law, academia and business.
Climate change presents material economic risks and opportunities. The Bank of England’s Prudential Regulation Authority and others have warned of the potential liability exposure of company directors in three main areas:
- Their company’s contribution to anthropogenic climate change.
- A failure to adequately manage the risks associated with climate change.
- Inaccurate disclosure or reporting of these factors.
This has implications for corporate governance in climate risk-exposed industries, from financial services to mining, infrastructure, agriculture, and beyond. It is also relevant to the insurance sector, in terms of professional indemnity and directors’ and officers’ insurance.
Despite the risks, there is little in-depth analysis of how current corporate governance laws and fiduciary duties help – or hinder – the actions of company directors confronted with complex climate change challenges.
The CCLI has been established as a research, education, and outreach project by the University of Oxford’s Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment, HRH The Prince of Wales’s Accounting for Sustainability Project, and ClientEarth.
It is focused on Australia, Canada, South Africa and the UK and is examining the legal basis for directors in common law countries to take account of physical climate change risk and societal responses to climate change, under prevailing statutory and common (judge-made) laws.
For more information, see the agenda.
A report will appear on this website after the event.
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