Corporation, Corporate Governance and the Sustainable Transition

As the main agents of economic growth world-wide, corporations embody a paradoxical role in our current social and political order. They are increasingly viewed as legitimate partners and subjects of global governance and the sustainable transition, but they are also routinely involved in scandals and crises both in relation to their financial power but also to the climate crisis.

Acknowledging corporations as both the (perceived) agents of sustainable growth and technological development favouring a sustainable transition, as well as of inequality, greenwashing, climate crisis and environmental disasters, this edited collection includes chapters that focus on the corporation as a specific form of business organization and the role of the corporation and corporate governance in the sustainable transition. It brings together innovative research that investigates ways of reforming corporate governance practices in the light of corporations’ responsibility for climate degradation; develops a deeper understanding of the specificity of the modern corporation, its legal claims to liability and personhood, and how that affects its role in the sustainable transition; and addresses the responsibility and accountability of corporations. How are corporations made accountable and responsible with regards to the sustainable transition? How is the corporation conceived as a subject, (un)accountable to its actions and (in)capable of enabling change?

Advancing a comprehensive research agenda that enhances the understanding of the pivotal and paradoxical role corporations and alternative models of corporate governance play in relation to climate change, The Corporation, Corporate Governance and the Sustainable Transition is a compelling resource for understanding the pitfalls and potential of corporate power.

Tessa Tilde Barnow is a PhD Fellow at the Department of Business Humanities and Law, Copenhagen Business School, Denmark.

Benjamin Ask Popp-Madsen is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Business Humanities and Law, Copenhagen Business School, Denmark.

Mathias Hein Jessen is an Associate Professor at the Department of Business Humanities and Law, Copenhagen Business School, Denmark.