Business Law, Public Responsibility, and Ethics Commons^™

What’S Scope 3 Good For?, Madison Condon

Faculty Scholarship

Opposition to the Securities and Exchange Commission’s (“SEC”) new rule on updated climate risk reporting has focused on one category of disclosures as particularly objectionable: Scope 3 emissions.⁷ Otherwise known as “supply chain emissions,” Scope 3 emissions have been voluntarily reported by a growing number of companies since the term was invented as part of the Greenhouse Gas Protocol in 2001.⁸ They include all the emissions both up and downstream of a corporations’ own activities: the emissions of the privately-owned factory that produced the shoes Target sells, as well as the emissions you burn while driving to the …

A Call For The Library Community To Deploy Best Practices Toward A Database For Biocultural Knowledge Relating To Climate Change, Martha B. Lerski

Publications and Research

Abstract

Purpose – In this paper, a call to the library and information science community to support documentation and conservation of cultural and biocultural heritage has been presented.

Design/methodology/approach – Based in existing Literature, this proposal is generative and descriptive— rather than prescriptive—regarding precisely how libraries should collaborate to employ technical and ethical best practices to provide access to vital data, research and cultural narratives relating to climate.

Findings – COVID-19 and climate destruction signal urgent global challenges. Library best practices are positioned to respond to climate change. Literature indicates how libraries preserve, share and cross-link cultural and scientific knowledge. …

Protecting Third Parties In Contracts, Kishanthi Parella

Scholarly Articles

Corporations routinely impose externalities on a broad range of non-shareholders, as illustrated by several unsuccessful lawsuits against corporations involving forced labor, human trafficking, child labor, and environmental harms in global supply chains. Lack of legal accountability subsequently translates into low legal risk for corporate misconduct, which reduces the likelihood of prevention. Corporate misconduct toward non-shareholders arises from a fundamental inconsistency within contract law regarding the status of third parties: On the one hand, we know that it takes a community to contract. Contracting parties often rely on multiple third parties—not signatories to the contract—to play important roles in facilitating exchange, …

Management-Based Regulation, Cary Coglianese, Shana M. Starobin

All Faculty Scholarship

Environmental regulators have embraced management-based regulation as a flexible instrument for addressing a range of important problems often poorly addressed by other types of regulations. Under management-based regulation, regulated firms must engage in management-related activities oriented toward addressing targeted problems—such as planning and analysis to mitigate risk and the implementation of internal management systems geared towards continuous improvement. In contrast with more restrictive forms of regulation which can impose one-size-fits-all solutions, management-based regulation offers firms greater operational choice about how to solve regulatory problems, leveraging firms’ internal informational advantage to innovate and search for alternative measures to achieve the intended …

Making Sustainability Disclosure Sustainable, Jill E. Fisch

All Faculty Scholarship

Sustainability is receiving increasing attention from issuers, investors and regulators. The desire to understand issuer sustainability practices and their relationship to economic performance has resulted in a proliferation of sustainability disclosure regimes and standards. The range of approaches to disclosure, however, limit the comparability and reliability of the information disclosed. The Securities & Exchange Commission (SEC) has solicited comment on whether to require expanded sustainability disclosures in issuer’s periodic financial reporting, and investors have communicated broad-based support for such expanded disclosures, but, to date, the SEC has not required general sustainability disclosure.

This Article argues that claims about the relationship …

Capturing Regulatory Agendas?: An Empirical Study Of Industry Use Of Rulemaking Petitions, Daniel Walters

All Faculty Scholarship

A great deal of skepticism toward administrative agencies stems from the widespread perception that they excessively or even exclusively cater to business interests. From the political right comes the accusation that business interests use regulation to erect barriers to entry that protect profits and stifle competition. From the political left comes the claim that business interests use secretive interactions with agencies to erode and negate beneficial regulatory programs. Regulatory “capture” theory elevates many of these claims to the status of economic law. Despite growing skepticism about capture theory in academic circles, empirical studies of business influence and capture return ambiguous …

The Limits Of Performance-Based Regulation, Cary Coglianese

All Faculty Scholarship

Performance-based regulation is widely heralded as a superior approach to regulation. Rather than specifying the actions regulated entities must take, performance-based regulation instead requires the attainment of outcomes and gives flexibility in how to meet them. Despite nearly universal acclaim for performance-based regulation, the reasons supporting its use remain largely theoretical and conjectural. Owing in part to a lack of a clear conceptual taxonomy, researchers have yet to produce much empirical research documenting the strengths and weaknesses of performance-based regulation. In this Article, I provide a much-needed conceptual framework for understanding and assessing performance-based regulation. After defining performance-based regulation and …

Governance Interactions In Sustainable Supply Chain Management, Errol Meidinger

Transnational Business Governance Interactions Working Papers

“Supply chains” are a major site of transnational business governance, and yet their dynamics and effectiveness are usually more assumed than interrogated in regulatory governance discourse. The very term “chain” implies a more determinist and simplistic understanding of supply relationships than is empirically supportable. Supply chains in practice are complex, dynamic, and highly variable networks. Based on peer-group presentations by over 60 supply chain professionals, this paper analyzes sustainable supply chain management practices in terms of the interactions conceptions of the Transnational Business Governance Interactions framework. It discusses possible refinements of the framework and suggests that sustainable supply chain management …

The Law Of The Test: Performance-Based Regulation And Diesel Emissions Control, Cary Coglianese, Jennifer Nash

All Faculty Scholarship

The Volkswagen diesel emissions scandal of 2015 not only pushed that company’s stock and retail sales into freefall, but also raised serious questions about the efficacy of existing regulatory controls. The same furtive actions taken by Volkswagen had been taken nearly twenty years earlier by other firms in the diesel industry. In that previous scandal, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) discovered that diesel truck engine manufacturers had, like Volkswagen would later do, programmed on-board computers to calibrate their engines one way to satisfy the required emissions test. Those manufacturers had also programmed the on-board computers to re-calibrate the engines …

Corporate Social Responsibility/Sustainability Reporting Among The Fortune Global 250: Greenwashing Or Green Supply Chain?, John K. Lewis

Faculty and Staff - Articles & Papers

The sustainability reporting efforts of MNCs who are members of the Fortune Global 250 (FG250) was investigated. The focus was on sustainability reporting by MNCs of supply chain impacts. The reporting of FG250 MNCs was examined to determine if greenwashing was occurring or whether MNCs had committed to operating a green supply chain. A mixed methodology was used consisting of quantitative analysis of twenty-five MNC CSR/sustainability reports which were randomly selected from the FG250 listing. Qualitative analysis using content analysis was also conducted on the reports. Both methodologies concentrated on the sustainability reporting of the selected MNCs in regard to …

Agenda: Seeds Of Change: Responding To Global Change In A Bottom-Up World, University Of Colorado Boulder. Getches-Wilkinson Center For Natural Resources, Energy, And The Environment, University Of Colorado Boulder. School Of Law, Posner Center For International Development, Resolve (Firm), Newmont Mining Corporation

Seeds of Change: Responding to Global Change in a Bottom-Up World (Martz Winter Symposium, February 12-13)

Sponsors: Posner Center for International Development, RESOLVE, Inc., Newmont Mining Corporation, and Getches-Wilkinson Center for Natural Resources, Energy, and the Environment.

Conference moderators, panelists and speakers included University of Colorado Law School professors Phil Weiser, Sarah Krakoff, Britt Banks, and Lakshman Guruswamy.

This conference is made possible through the generous support of donors who sponsored this year’s Martz Sustainability Symposium (including Newmont Mining Corporation) and those who have invested in our Clyde O. Martz Endowed Fund for Natural Resources Management (including Brian Dolan and Davis Graham and Stubbs LLP). The Martz Natural Resources Management Fund was established in the memory …

Performance Track’S Postmortem: Lessons From The Rise And Fall Of Epa’S “Flagship” Voluntary Program, Cary Coglianese, Jennifer Nash

All Faculty Scholarship

For nearly a decade, the United States Environmental Protection Agency (“EPA”) considered its National Environmental Performance Track to be its “flagship” voluntary program — even a model for transforming the conventional system of environmental regulation. Since Performance Track’s founding during the Clinton Administration, EPA officials repeatedly claimed that the program’s rewards attracted hundreds of the nation’s “top” environmental performers and induced these businesses to make significant environmental gains beyond legal requirements. Although EPA eventually disbanded Performance Track early in the Obama Administration, the program has been subsequently emulated by a variety of state and federal regulatory authorities. To discern lessons …

Stasis And Change In Environmental Law: The Past, Present And Future Of The Fordham Environmental Law Review, Gerald S. Dickinson

Articles

The past twenty years of environmental law are marked as much by legislative stasis as by profound change in the way that lawyers, policymakers, and scholars interact with the field. Although no new federal legislation was passed over the past two decades, much has changed about the field of environmental law. This change is the result of a set of conceptual and legal challenges to the field posed by intellectual and policy movements that took root in the early 1990s. The intellectual and policy movements that have most profoundly shaped the field of environmental law in the past twenty years …

Slides: What Laundry Can Teach Us: Five Principles For New Business Models, Teju Ravilochan

2012 Energy Justice Conference and Technology Exposition (September 17-18)

Presenter: Teju Ravilochan, CEO, The Unreasonable Institute

17 slides

Agenda: 2012 Energy Justice Conference And Technology Exposition, University Of Colorado Boulder. Center For Energy & Environmental Security, University Of Colorado Boulder. Colorado European Union Center Of Excellence, University Of Colorado Boulder. Presidents Leadership Institute

2012 Energy Justice Conference and Technology Exposition (September 17-18)

Co-sponsored with the Colorado European Union Center of Excellence and the Presidents Leadership Institute at the University of Colorado Boulder.

The ability to harness energy is fundamental to economic and social development. Worldwide, almost 3 billion people have little or no access to beneficial energy resources for cooking, heating, water sanitation, illumination, transportation, or basic mechanical needs. Energy poverty exacerbates ill health and economic hardship, and reduces educational opportunities, particularly for women and children. Specifically, access to efficient and affordable energy services is a prerequisite for achieving the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) relating to poverty eradication.

In response, the UN …

Slides: Multi-Dimensional Energy Poverty Index (Mepi), Morgan Bazilian

2012 Energy Justice Conference and Technology Exposition (September 17-18)

Presenter: Dr. Morgan Bazilian, Deputy Director, Joint Institute for Strategic Energy Analysis (JISEA), National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL)

8 slides

Slides: Sources Of Electrical Energy For Those Who Are Remote And Poor, Frank Barnes

2012 Energy Justice Conference and Technology Exposition (September 17-18)

Presenter: Dr. Frank Barnes, Distinguished Professor, Electrical, Computer, and Energy Engineering, University of Colorado

24 slides

Slides: Envirofit: Making The World Fit For Humanity, Jessica Alderman

2012 Energy Justice Conference and Technology Exposition (September 17-18)

Presenter: Jessica Alderman, Director, ENVIROFIT

15 slides

Slides: Draft Power In Developing Country Agriculture--South Asia, Arjun Makhijani

2012 Energy Justice Conference and Technology Exposition (September 17-18)

Presenter: Dr. Arjun Makhijani, President, Institute for Energy and Environmental Research (IEER)

13 slides

Slides: The Green Climate Fund: Challenges And Opportunities: Some Thoughts On How The Green Climate Fund Could Close The Energy Justice Gap, Martin Hiller

2012 Energy Justice Conference and Technology Exposition (September 17-18)

Presenter: Martin Hiller, Director‐General, Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency Partnership (REEEP), Vienna, Austria

22 slides

Slides: Meeting The Needs Of Women Through Clean Cooking Solutions, Corinne Hart

2012 Energy Justice Conference and Technology Exposition (September 17-18)

Presenter: Corinne Hart, Program Manager, Gender and Markets, Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves

20 slides

Slides: Impacts Of Energy Deficits In Cooking, Illumination, Water, Sanitation, And Motive Power, Paul S. Chinowsky

2012 Energy Justice Conference and Technology Exposition (September 17-18)

Presenter: Dr. Paul Chinowsky, Director, Mortenson Center in Engineering for Developing Communities; Professor, University of Colorado

25 slides

Slides: Nokero: Power To The Powerless, Stephen Katsaros

2012 Energy Justice Conference and Technology Exposition (September 17-18)

Presenter: Stephen Katsaros, Inventor, Founder, and CEO, Nokero

13 slides

Slides: Appropriate Sustainable Energy Technologies: A Light To The World, Lakshman D. Guruswamy, Jason B. Aamodt, Blake Feamster

2012 Energy Justice Conference and Technology Exposition (September 17-18)

Presenter: Jason Aamodt, Attorney; Adjunct Professor, University of Tulsa

15 slides

Slides: Unido: Partner For Prosperity, Kandeh K. Yumkella

2012 Energy Justice Conference and Technology Exposition (September 17-18)

Presenter: Dr. Kandeh Yumkella, Chairman, UN Energy; Director General, United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO)

16 slides

Slides: Session 3: Decision-Making And The Energy Poor, Andrew Yager

2012 Energy Justice Conference and Technology Exposition (September 17-18)

Presenter: Andrew Yager, United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Division for Sustainable Development

33 slides

A Cost-Benefit Interpretation Of The "Substantially Similar" Hurdle In The Congressional Review Act: Can Osha Ever Utter The E-Word (Ergonomics) Again?, Adam M. Finkel, Jason W. Sullivan

All Faculty Scholarship

The Congressional Review Act permits Congress to veto proposed regulations via a joint resolution, and prohibits an agency from reissuing a rule “in substantially the same form” as the vetoed rule. Some scholars—and officials within the agencies themselves—have understood the “substantially the same” standard to bar an agency from regulating in the same substantive area covered by a vetoed rule. Courts have not yet provided an authoritative interpretation of the standard.

This Article examines a spectrum of possible understandings of the standard, and relates them to the legislative history (of both the Congressional Review Act itself and the congressional veto …

The Managerial Turn In Environmental Policy, Cary Coglianese

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Reasonable Emissions Of Greenhouse Gases: Efficient Abatement For A Stock Pollutant, Howard F. Chang

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Business, Steven R. Ratner

Book Chapters

This chapter seeks to expose some of the divergences between doctrine and reality, and to suggest ways of understanding the field that take proper account of business. It does so first by examining the roles and goals of business entities with respect to international environmental law. It then examines how international law has accommodated the place of business in environmental policy with respect to two key issues: (1) corporations as the target of legal obligations; and (2) corporations as participants in the process of international environmental law, particularly with respect to law-making and implementation. I conclude with some thoughts regarding …