devoir de vigilance

Merci à l’École des dirigeants d’HEC d’assurer le suivi de sa grande conférence récente sur l’impact social : « Retour sur la 2e édition de la grande conférence Measuring Beyond ».

En voici quelques extraits :

Dans ce contexte, les organisations doivent repenser leur rapport à la performance, notamment en adoptant une vision de capitalisme partenaire, souligne Geneviève Fortier. « En réfléchissant à l’intérêt de l’ensemble des parties prenantes, et non seulement à celui des actionnaires, cela nous force à concilier les notions de profitabilité et de responsabilité sociale. Et au final, les organisations sont non seulement plus responsables, mais plus résilientes en cas de turbulences. »

L’engagement des communautés est crucial, en particulier dans un contexte de collaboration avec les Premières Nations. Pour y arriver, les organisations doivent transformer leurs objectifs stratégiques en buts communs, a expliqué Marya Besharov, professeure à la Saïd Business School de l’Université d’Oxford. « Lorsque nous changeons de perspective pour penser à la fois au « nous » et au « eux », cela nous aide à aborder cet engagement très différemment. » Plus précisément, les entreprises devraient miser sur une relation transformationnelle, où la communauté est pleinement intégrée au processus décisionnel et partage les bénéfices.

La dimension financière est souvent négligée quand il s’agit de projets de nature sociale, note Ludovic Phalippou, professeur à la Saïd Business School de l’Université d’Oxford qui a présenté un exemple concret : celui de la construction de logements sociaux et abordables sur les terrains d’une ancienne prison, à New York.

Avec l’adoption de réglementations comme la Loi sur la lutte contre le travail forcé et le travail des enfants dans les chaînes d’approvisionnement en 2024, les entreprises doivent non seulement surveiller leurs propres activités, mais aussi celles de leurs fournisseurs. (…) C’est aussi un élément transformateur puisque les entreprises peuvent accompagner leurs fournisseurs pour se conformer aux réglementations et, par le fait même, améliorer leur bilan social, estime Hélène V. Gagnon, cheffe de la direction du Capital humain et du développement durable chez CAE. « Du point de vue environnemental, nous avons aidé nos fournisseurs à trouver des opportunités de décarbonation leur permettant de réduire leurs coûts, ce qui nous a permis d’avoir une meilleure vision d’ensemble de ces opérations. » C’est la même chose au point de vue social, fait-elle valoir. Plus qu’une question de conformité, les grandes organisations peuvent influencer toute leur chaîne d’approvisionnement. Un levier complexe, mais puissant.

« Pour atteindre la carboneutralité, il n’est pas nécessaire que toutes les entreprises soient carboneutres, a expliqué la spécialiste. De par leur nature, certaines organisations peuvent nécessairement faire plus que les autres. C’est donc en cumulant tous ces efforts qu’il sera possible d’y arriver. » Un objectif qui aura certes un effet positif sur l’environnement, mais aussi sur les humains qui doivent composer avec feux de forêt, inondations et autres effets des changements climatiques, conclut-elle.

À la prochaine…

Bel article de réflexion offert par Beate Sjåfjell et Jukka Mähönen (professeurs à Oslo) sur la directive vigilance : « Corporate Purpose and the EU Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Proposal » (Oxford Business Law Blog, 25 février 2022).

Extrait

Taking sustainability seriously: sustainable value creation within planetary boundaries

The question of how to secure the contribution of our businesses to the fundamental transformation to sustainability is not one that should be responded to in the ideological and emotional way as we have seen in some of the responses when the Sustainable Corporate Governance initiative was launched. Now that the Directive proposal is out, we encourage all who wish to participate in the discussion to lay aside any ideological ‘shareholder vs stakeholders’ viewpoints. That is not what is at stake. While the IPCC report on climate change of 2021 has been referred to as ‘code red for humanity’, planetary boundaries research shows that reality is even more grim – we have a whole set of code reds for humanity and they are increasing in number (as the latest planetary boundaries research shows), and the status for the European Union is not good. Working towards sustainability also entails questions of social justice – just as we cannot silo environmental issues into various categories to be dealt with separately, we cannot separate environmental and social issues. These are all interconnected elements. All of these issues must be dealt with simultaneously. The sustainability challenges of our time are complex and interconnected and attempting to silo sustainability work into dealing piecemeal with isolated elements will not work.

While there seems generally to be an increasing consensus among governments and businesses on the need to integrate sustainability into the governance of our globalized businesses, the attempts to do this so far seem to have been based on three principles: a) as few clear and enforceable rules as possible, b) support voluntary measures although they haven’t worked  so far, and c) if we must regulate, be sure to leave company law out of the picture.

However, to get real about integrating sustainability, we need to go to company law, which is the regulatory infrastructure for decision-making in business. As all company law scholars who have analysed the sources know, company law gives a broad discretion to corporate boards and by extension senior management in their corporate governance. There is, in other words, space within the current company law and corporate governance systems to steer businesses in more sustainable directions. This has been used by some as an argument for the sanctity of company law – no need for change, move on, nothing to see here! The problem is that this discretionary space is taken up by the social norm of shareholder primacy. We therefore suggest, on the basis of over a decade of multijurisdictional comparative analyses of the drivers for and the barriers to sustainable business, that company law must take back that space and clarify why we have companies (corporate purpose) and give a principle-based instruction to boards on how to do their jobs in this era that is defined by the extreme unsustainabilities resulting from business as usual.

Sustainable value creation is already an emerging concept in corporate governance all over the world. What needs to be done is to position sustainable value creation within the ecological limits of our planet. We therefore propose both ‘sustainable value’ and ‘planetary boundaries’ as general clauses in company law, the content of which gradually can be firmed up as practice develops. This doesn’t mean we don’t think there should be any guidance in the law – quite the opposite, as we see the need to ensure that business does not take these two concepts and turn them into opportunities for greenwashing, bluewashing or ‘sustainability washing’.  Integrating these concepts into the duties of the board is therefore also paramount, outlining this in a way that provides legal certainty.

Avoiding the shareholder vs stakeholder trap does not mean that we do not in our proposal encompass a wide variety of interests affected by the company’s business. However, while involving affected communities, trade unions, and civil society is crucial, a mere canvassing of ‘stakeholder interests’ and giving priority to the ones that make themselves heard the most is insufficient, misleading and potentially destructive for the overarching purpose of sustainable value creation. The backdrop must always be the interconnected complexities and the vulnerability of the often-unrepresented groups (whether invisible workers deep in the global value chains, Indigenous communities, or future generations), and the aim of a sustainable future within planetary boundaries.

Under pressure: the proposed Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive

The European Commission’s Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive proposal, presented on 23 February 2022, aims to put into place mandatory and harmonised sustainability due diligence rules in the European Economic Area, in recognition of the insufficiency of voluntary action by business and the regulatory chaos that business faces in its cross-border activities.

The proposed Directive is appropriately named ‘Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence’, resonating in title with the proposed Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive. It is positive that the Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive proposal clarifies which environmental and human rights issues are intended to be included. However, a broader approach is needed, drawing on a research-based concept of sustainable value creation within planetary boundaries.

The proposal builds on a due diligence duty for the members of the board and the chief executive officer of the company. It reflects the international human rights and environmental international law obligations and concretises the steps of the due diligence process. There is, however, a danger of box ticking instead of principle-based evaluations of risks of unsustainability.

There are proposals for both public and private enforcement, including civil liability for the board members and the chief executive officer, which makes this proposal different from much of what we have otherwise seen in the corporate sustainability area. The scope of the proposal is however extremely narrow, excluding in its direct application all small and medium-sized enterprises, and covering only some 13,000 EU companies and some 4,000 third-country companies.

The proposal takes an important core company law step, which we have advocated in our work, namely to clarify that the duty of the board (strangely formulated as a duty, in Anglo-Saxon speak, for all ‘directors’) is to promote the interests of the company. Wisely, there is no attempt to harmonize this (and especially not by including some kind of stakeholder language), rather leaving the content of the interests of the company to the variety of company law regimes in Europe. What is missing, however, is further situating this duty within an overarching purpose of sustainable value creation within planetary boundaries, which would have given a clearer sustainability-oriented framing for the whole proposal. 

The proposal does employ misleading stakeholder language in the consultation duties as part of due diligence, where it would have been better to specify that the consultation should take place with affected communities, groups and people.

The proposed Directive is clearly a product of the tension resulting from, on the one hand, the social norm of shareholder primacy and the drive to keep company law untouched by sustainability issues, and on the other hand, the willingness to make necessary changes to mitigate the extreme unsustainabilities of business as usual. We see this in the way core company law issues are relegated to the end of the proposal. It would have been much more logical to set out clearly in the beginning of the proposed Directive the core duties of the boards to ensure that sustainability due diligence is used as a key tool for integrating sustainability into the entire business of the company.

The Directive proposal needs to be strengthened on a number of points, and it is now to be discussed further by the European Parliament and the Council, before it can be adopted with possible revisions. We strongly recommend that subsequent work with the Directive proposal be based on a research-based concept of sustainability and take company law and corporate governance seriously, rather than allowing the misleading shareholder vs stakeholder dichotomy to set the parameters for continued siloing of core company law as the regulatory infrastructure for corporate decision-making.

À la prochaine…

Où s’en va l’UE avec le devoir de vigilance ? M. Farid Baddache propose une synthèse avec des pistes de réflexions : « L’UE veut un devoir de vigilance sur les droits humains obligatoire en 2021 » (Ksapas, 4 juin 2020).

Résumé :

Depuis plus de 10 ans, les entreprises appliquent les Principes Directeurs des Nations Unies sur les Entreprises et les Droits de l’Homme. Faisant écho à de multiples réglementations nationales – notamment en Californie, en France, au Royaume-Uni, aux Pays-Bas ou en Allemagne – la Commission Européenne a annoncé la mise en œuvre d’une directive sur la diligence raisonnable obligatoire en matière de Droits Humains en 2021. Quels sont les retours des entreprises à date ? Une directive européenne peut-elle imposer le respect des Droits Humains sur l’ensemble des chaînes d’approvisionnement, au-delà de ce qui existe déjà ? Quel impact la pandémie Covid-19 pourrait-elle avoir sur son éventuelle application ?

À la prochaine…