Who defines corporate climate obligations? Exploring the blind spots and interaction between private regulatory initiatives and corporate climate law

While existing socio-legal scholarship has explored the effectiveness of private climate regulatory initiatives in delivering corporate climate action and expressed hope for more stringent legal obligations, there has yet to be an empirical investigation of how these initiatives influence the framing of emerging legal frameworks. With my DPhil project, I hope to contribute to building a more nuanced understanding of the complex interactions between private climate regulatory initiatives, emerging legal obligations, and corporate responses in the EU and Switzerland.

Corporate climate law As the EU attempts to achieve its climate targets by integrating sustainability into corporate governance frameworks through disclosures and non-financial reporting, there is a growing tension between "the objectives of environmental law" and "those of company law" (Iglesias-Rodriguez 2023:10). If conflicts arise, "the success of the company" cannot be compromised (s.172 Companies Act 2006).

Businesses do not, indeed cannot, consider whether maintaining or increasing sales will undermine long-term efficiency gains. Yet, how, for example, can VW reduce its energy use and material throughput without reducing car sales? Or can it fulfil its emissions targets simply because private regulatory language has legitimised a blind spot around its upstream and downstream value chain emissions which make up 98.4% of its total organisational climate impact (Volkswagen Group 2022:53)?

While the EU mainly mandates disclosures and reporting, Switzerland has adopted an "obligations of results" approach. In 2023, Switzerland became the first country globally to mandate that all businesses achieve net-zero emissions by 2050. Private climate regulation Private climate regulatory initiatives govern how corporations measure their environmental impact and define the structure of their climate commitments.

They seem to be defining the space of corporate climate obligations (e.g., the language of risks and "Scopes"), shaping the shared belief system and discourses of lawmakers. Interaction Drawing on Shaffer's (2009) framework, emerging EU and Swiss corporate climate laws may be viewed as a response to "developments in the private sphere".

Throughout the drafting, private climate regulatory initiatives' customs and developments are usually considered, and standards may be codified, deficiencies addressed, or legitimacy enhanced. Concurrently, these initiatives respond to emerging laws by influencing the law's meaning, internalising legal standards, or by preempting or circumventing laws.

By investigating this reciprocal interaction, I hope to contribute to one of "the most unloved subjects [corporations] of Socio-Legal Studies" (Wheeler 2021). In doing so, I will trace the factors determining which climate obligations are considered appropriate - and which are not.

To collect the relevant data for my analysis, I aim to undertake fieldwork in Brussels and Bern in my second year. As I speak three official EU languages (English, German, and French on a B1 level) and German (for Switzerland), I hope to be able to undertake shadowing opportunities at my partner institutions and conduct interviews with actors involved in the process of drafting or influencing emerging corporate climate law.