Law Commons^™

Social License And Environmental Protection: Why Businesses Go Beyond Compliance, Neil Gunningham, Robert Kagan, Dorothy Thornton

Robert Kagan

This article examines the concept of the corporate "social license," which governs the extent to which a corporation is constrained to meet societal expectations & avoid activities that societies (or influential elements within them) deem unacceptable, whether or not those expectations are embodied in law. It examines the social license empirically, as it relates to one social problem -- environmental protection -- & as it relates to one particular industry: pulp & paper manufacturing. It shows why the social license is important, the circumstances in which it may encourage companies to go "beyond compliance" with regulation, how its terms are …