Listen to Professor Beate Kristine Sjåfjell, Head of Research Group on Companies, Markets and Sustainability at the University of Oslo.
Frankly Speaking welcomes Professor Beate Sjåfjell, who publishes extensively on corporate governance and the integration of sustainability in the role of the company boards, to talk about company law. Beate heads the research group on Sustainability Law at the University of Oslo, is a member of the European Commission’s Informal Group of Company Law Experts and founded an international network of women business scholars Daughters of Themis: International Network of Women Business Scholars.
Listen in to a conversation about:
“It's time to wake up: the financial and corporate risks of continued unsustainability, of climate change, biodiversity loss, human rights violations, lack of decent work, tax evasion - all of these also directly impact the company. A company can carry on as if the world doesn't matter for some time. But these risks will materialize. And that means that any board and senior executive management that wants to do its job properly must align the way the business is run with the larger interests of society.”
Is it really is possible for companies to "do the right thing"?
There's very little pressure being applied to companies by investors looking at how they're actually behaving and treating human rights as a core business priority. This needs to change.
Investors shouldn't just take companies' word for what they're doing; they should investigate what the companies are actually doing regarding human rights.