CLIMATE CHANGE, ENVIRONMENTAL SUSTAINABILITY AND THE CORPORATE PURPOSE

Climate change and environmental sustainability-related issues are increasingly regarded as potentially having an impact also on the corporate purpose. Since climate change and environmental degradation are – also – a man-made phenomenon, certainly capable to affecting human communities and activities without any geographical restraints, common efforts are needed to effectively fight them. On these grounds, both financial and non-financial institutions should proactively contribute to the solution of such problems. Nevertheless, the traditional understanding of the corporate purpose seems to fall short on prompting corporations to play a more proactive role vis-à-vis these challenges. A more solid legal basis to re-conceptualize, to some extent, the role of corporations in modern times is hence necessary and might be provided by the so-called double materiality principle, which has been embedded in the European Union legal framework.