Resources

As a systemic risk, climate change has the potential to disrupt the functioning of the entire financial system. This makes climate change a material consideration for boards of directors, who are responsible for ensuring the long-term viability of businesses. The fourth edition of the Directors’ Duties Navigator: Climate Risk and Sustainability Disclosures (the Navigator)*, like earlier editions, seeks…

The Commonwealth Climate and Law Initiative (CCLI) has partnered with the Climate Governance Initiative and the World Benchmarking Alliance (WBA), to publish a briefing for board directors on the Climate Governance Hub.   This briefing explores how companies are currently integrating nature considerations into their strategies by analysing six of the Nature Benchmark indicators (a 2022 – 2023 study assessing 769 companies),…

The Commonwealth Climate and Law Initiative (CCLI) has partnered with the Climate Governance Initiative to publish this briefing for board directors on the Climate Governance Hub.  A resource for navigating the rapidly-evolving landscape of sustainability-related corporate responsibilities, this: updates previous briefings on climate change litigation, climate-related disclosures and ESG-related risks in value chains and  the…

Under the Australian Corporations Act, nature-related risks are within the scope of directors’ duties to act with care and diligence, according to a new legal opinion dated 24 October 2023.  Authored by Sebastian Hartford-Davis and Zoe Bush, the opinion ‘Nature-related risks and directors' duties’ concluded that nature-related risks to a company should be regarded as…

The Commonwealth Climate and Law Initiative (CCLI) is delighted to have worked with the Climate Governance Initiative (CGI) to produce the third edition to the Primer on Climate Change: Directors’ Duties and Disclosure Obligations. This new edition delves deep into the material, financial, and systemic risks posed by climate change, offering valuable insights into the implications…

In the context of recent global developments, boards need to understand all of the indirect, but very real, implications of biodiversity loss for their business.  This update draws out key points of the Commonwealth Climate and Law Initiative (CCLI) report: Biodiversity Risk: Legal Implications for Companies and their Directors to outline why biodiversity loss should…

Our brand new report authored by Jennifer Ramos and Zaneta Sedilekova ‘Biodiversity Risk: Legal Implications for Companies and their Directors’ explains that in order to discharge their duties and disclosure obligations, directors can ensure that risk management processes assess foreseeable biodiversity dependencies and impacts of the company for materiality and measure those that are material,…

On 7 December 2022, world leaders will meet in Montreal, Canada for the second round of the 15th Conference of Parties (COP15) to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) to agree on the final text of Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF), an agreement with an ambitious goal to reverse global biodiversity loss. As the world enters…

The Commonwealth Climate and Law Initiative (CCLI) has partnered with the Climate Governance Initiative (CGI) to prepare this Quarterly Update for the CGI network. This is the third update of a series of quarterly learning materials on climate change as it relates to boards’ duties and governance. KEY POINTS ON VALUE CHAIN DUE DILIGENCE…