Climate Change Reporting and Due Diligence: Frontiers of Corporate Climate Responsibility

Abstract

Climate change affects businesses significantly. Corporations are increasingly expected to consider the impacts of climate change on their business and, conversely, the impacts of their business on the global climate, which calls for adequate measures to reduce climate-related risks. Despite the widely accepted need for swift and quite drastic reductions of greenhouse gas emissions to limit global temperature rise in line with the Paris Agreement, specific and binding legal obligations for corporations mandating such reductions are scarce. Potentially filling this regulatory gap, international best practices for private sector enterprises to address climate change related issues are quickly emerging, and regulators are beginning to transpose them into binding legal frameworks. In addition, courts are increasingly called upon to review climate-related business decisions and strategies. Climate change reporting and, more recently, climate change due diligence are core aspects in this complex debate. This article explores and contextualizes these developments from a transnational perspective, with a main focus on Europe.