Rise of the Shadow ESG Regulators: Investment Advisers, Sustainability
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Copyright © 2019 Environmental Law Institute®, Washington, DC. Reprinted with permission from ELR®, http://www.eli.org, 1-800-433-5120. [D]isclosure has become the most important method to reg- Rise of the Shadow ulate corporate managers. —Robert B. Thompson & Hillary A. Sale1 ESG Regulators: [B]y and large, companies continue to take a minimally compliant approach to sustainability disclosure. Investment —Sustainability Accounting Standards Board2 Advisers, ecause federal securities law is grounded in the principle of disclosure, one could deduce from the Sustainability quotes above that the sustainability practices of Bbusiness might be better regulated if companies reported about them with greater care. Such strengthening would Accounting, and yield important benefits both for environmental protection and the global cause of human rights.3 Corporate social responsibility (CSR)4 acquires even more salience in light of Their Effects on the perceived rollback of human rights protections around the world,5 setbacks to the environmental movement such Corporate Social as the United States’ rejection of the Paris Agreement on climate,6 and the weakening of U.S. Environmental Pro- tection Agency (EPA) regulations domestically.7 CSR is Responsibility growing in importance, both in terms of public awareness8 Authors’ Note: We’d like to thank commenters on earlier versions by Paul Rissman and Diana Kearney of the Article: Donna Conforti, Kenneth Gerstein, Jonas Kron, Sanford Lewis, Mark McDivitt, Edwin Rekosh, and Max, Gabe, Paul Rissman is Co-Founder of Rights CoLab, where he and Zach Rissman. researches financial tools for advancing environmental 1. Robert B. Thompson & Hillary A. Sale,Securities Fraud as Corporate Gover- and human rights. Diana Kearney is Legal and nance: Reflections Upon Federalism, 56 Vand. L. Rev. 859, 861 (2003). Shareholder Advocacy Advisor at Oxfam America, where 2. SASB, The State of Disclosure 2017, at 3 (2017), available at https:// she specializes in business and human rights law. www.sasb.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/2017State-of-Disclosure-Re- port-web.pdf. 3. Manette Kaisershot & Nicholas Connolly, Corporate Power and Human Rights 1 (2016) (discussing “[t]he pervasive influence of the cor- Summary poration and its ever-increasing effects on human rights globally”). 4. Here, CSR broadly refers to business initiatives that promote environmental Actions that fall under the catchall of “corporate social and social well-being. This is typically done through assessing and account- ing for a company’s human rights and environmental impacts to ensure that responsibility” have been viewed with skepticism. In the they are operating in a responsible manner; some actors also view this as United States, part of the blame lies with lax laws and regu- encapsulating provision of services to communities likely to be impacted by private-sector operations. lations surrounding social and environmental disclosure. 5. Interview by Ari Shapiro, National Public Radio, With Larry Diamond, Senior Fellow, Stanford University (Aug. 3, 2017), https://www.npr. Disclosure may soon be vastly improved with finalization of org/2017/08/03/541432445/decline-in-democracy-spreads-across-the- the Sustainability Accounting Standards Board’s financially globe-as-authoritarian-leaders-rise. 6. Robinson Meyer, Syria Is Joining the Paris Agreement. Now What?, Atlan- material social and environmental reporting standards. tic, Nov. 8, 2017, https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2017/11/ While the standards are voluntary, the fact that they have syria-is-joining-the-paris-agreement-now-what/545261. 7. Jennifer Ludden, Public to EPA on Cutting Regulations: “No!,” Nat’l been endorsed as “material” by many of the world’s largest Pub. Radio, May 19, 2017, https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/ investment advisers will transform them into legally action- 2017/05/19/528993681/public-to-epa-on-cutting-regulations-no. 8. Nielsen, The Sustainability Imperative 2 (2015) (“Sixty-six percent of able standards. consumers say they are willing to pay more for sustainable brands—up from 55% in 2014 and 50% in 2013.”), http://www.nielsen.com/content/dam/ corporate/us/en/reports-downloads/2015-reports/global-sustainability- report-oct-2015.pdf. 2-2019 NEWS & ANALYSIS 49 ELR 10155 Copyright © 2019 Environmental Law Institute®, Washington, DC. Reprinted with permission from ELR®, http://www.eli.org, 1-800-433-5120. 49 ELR 10156 ENVIRONMENTAL LAW REPORTER 2-2019 and in corporate acknowledgement.9 Business managers The Sustainability Accounting Standards Board are aware of the harms of authoritarianism and climate (SASB), however, an organization conceived explicitly to change,10 and have spoken out and undertaken remedial formulate standards that comply with the U.S. Supreme actions.11 But these actions have been halting and unsatis- Court’s definition of materiality, can soon be instrumen- factory to many in the fields of human rights and environ- talized to transform these long-standing tenets of corpo- mental protection; “corporate greed” is a phrase yet alive rate practice. Due to the process of consultation and voting and well in common parlance,12 and business attempts to utilized by SASB, there will be a clear record of investors rectify social and environmental damage are often dis- publicly endorsing the “materiality” of a range of human missed as “greenwashing.”13 This disappointing progress rights, environmental, or related standards that they have is all the more distressing in light of the aforementioned helped formulate. backsliding by government. Among the investors that have assisted in crafting the The thesis of this Article, however, is that a measure of standards are a significant group of investment advisers, pessimism surrounding responsible business practices can including six of the 10 largest asset managers globally.16 soon be ameliorated. We predict that corporations are on Released in November 2018,17 the standards are purely the cusp of moving along the spectrum from castigation voluntary and exist apart from the reporting compendium to approval. This will have nothing to do with a sudden that is enforced by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Com- change of heart on the part of a company’s directors and mission (SEC). We argue, however, that by endorsing the officers. These persons will value what they have always -val materiality of the standards, these specific investors will ued: a duty to their investors. Rather, it is the attitude of have created for themselves an extension of their fiduciary a critical subset of stockholders and bondholders that has duty of care to their customers: an implied duty to ask for, begun to change: the largest professional asset managers. and evaluate, reporting that satisfies the standards. Consci- While more than one cause will foment this change,14 entious customers, then, can pressure these asset managers the factor that will seal the shift in stockholder attitude, that have publicly supported the materiality of the SASB and in turn push CSR to the forefront of corporate con- standards, ensuring that best efforts are made to force dis- sciousness, is the finalization of a set of material disclo- closure of such human rights and environmental issues. sure standards for sustainability topics.15 Nonfinancial Finally, the evolving nature of the asset management sustainability reporting, regarding such business impacts industry itself provides the catalyst to turn fiduciaries as human rights violations or effects upon climate change, into effective de facto regulators. Small shareholders have has not been considered universally material. The effort to largely been replaced by large institutional investors; as the demonstrate material implications for specific firms has concentration of stock ownership into the hands of a few been an ongoing project by certain investors and organiza- grows, so too does the power wielded by these large owners. tions for several decades, yet U.S. corporate issuers seldom Today, the largest asset managers own staggeringly large face liability if they neglect to report such impacts to share- amounts of stock on behalf of their clients, spread over holders or the public. thousands of companies around the world.18 Once these investors find themselves compelled to consider material sustainability disclosure, they will demand such disclosure 9. Susan McPherson, 6 CSR Trends to Watch in 2017, Forbes, Jan. 19, 2017 (“In the past decade, we’ve witnessed a stunning transition as corporate from vast swaths of the global corporate world. We predict social responsibility (CSR) evolved from a nice-to-have silo to a funda- that this will set off a virtuous circle of disclosure impact- mental strategic priority for businesses large and small.”), https://www. ing behavior change. forbes.com/sites/susanmcpherson/2017/01/19/6-csr-trends-to-watch-in- 2017/#2bcbbc1ab1cc. The Article will proceed as follows: first, we describe the 10. See infra Part I. current situation in which corporations have a deepening 11. Id. 12. End Corporate Greed! Rights Now! A Sign-On Statement to Stop the Poisoning financial interest in fighting against authoritarianism and of the People and the Planet, Pan Asia Pac., Dec. 3, 2017, http://panap. climate change. Despite some admirable efforts, however, net/2017/12/end-corporate-greed-sign-on/; AFL-CIO, Corporate Greed most companies still have far to go in strengthening their (“It seems that hard work doesn’t matter anymore. This is the corporate attitude.” Mary Willis, laid off Nabisco/Mondelēz International worker), https://aflcio.org/issues/corporate-greed (last visited Dec. 1, 2018); Derek 16. SASB, Supporters, https://www.sasb.org/investor-use/supporters/ (last vis- Burnett, Corporate Greed: These Companies Deceived America for Profit—And ited Dec. 1, 2018). For a list of the largest asset managers, see IPE Reference You Probably Helped Them, Reader’s Dig., https://www.rd.com/culture/ Hub, Total Global AUM Table 2018, https://hub.ipe.com/top-400/total- corporate-greed/ (last visited Dec. 1, 2018). global-aum-table-2017/10007066.article (last visited Dec. 1, 2018). 13.