The Corporation, Corporate Governance and the Sustainable Transition: Introduction

As the climate crisis intensifies, there is a critical need for transformative action on a multiplicity of political, economic and organizational levels. The corporation stands at the very centre of this critical need, as corporations are accountable for a vast majority of global CO2 emissions. Reforming corporations and corporate governance is therefore central to the sustainable transition, and this insight is reflected in the increase in attention to the corporation. In this volume, we therefore ask the following questions: What is the role of corporations in the sustainable transition? Can the corporation and its internal structures of corporate governance be reformed to perform on a multiplicity of indicators beyond immediate share price and profit? What are the legal, political, economic and conceptual barriers to corporations’ progressive participation in the sustainable transition? The volume aspires not only to position the corporation as a key actor in the wide-ranging processes of sustainable transformation, and to point out the crucial impediments to the sustainable transformation of corporations, but also to stipulate ways in which the corporation can be reformed to play a progressive role in relation to grand challenges such as climate change and the sustainable transition.