ESG and sustainability training for business leaders

Healthy, functioning ecosystems provide the foundations for all economic activity, hence growing consensus that directors who properly evaluate and act on sustainability-related risks and impacts are more likely to have fulfilled their fiduciary duties than those who don’t. Our training helps boards to:

• Recognise the scale of the threat to business continuity, asset valuations, supply chain resilience, and the maintenance of conditions conducive to shareholder value;
• Appreciate the necessity and value of making decisions that preserve and enhance all the capitals (i.e., natural and social, as well as financial) that a business relies upon to function; and
• Ensure that they are sufficiently knowledgeable to provide effective oversight, management and integration of sustainability matters into core strategy, governance, and risk management.

ESG litigation is evolving rapidly, with recent landmark cases establishing that companies (not just states) have a legal duty of care to reduce emissions in line with the Paris Agreement, and that they can be held liable for their contributions to climate change. Our training helps boards to understand:

• Landmark legal opinions and case law, and the new legal risks and precedents they have established;
• The increasing risk of liability, both for companies and their officers; and
• The logic of a proactive approach to sustainable transition.

Recent years have seen a significant rise in mandatory obligations in relation to sustainability due diligence and disclosure. They've also seen political pushback against advancing regulation, adding uncertainty to complexity. Our training helps boards to:

• Simplify regulatory complexity by understanding interrelationships and common foundations;
• Identify which obligations apply to them now, and which may apply in future; and
• Appreciate that what many regulations have sought to make mandatory is simply good governance in a world of rising systemic risks.

Done right, double materiality assessment (DMA) it isn't just part of the reporting process. It's a critical strategic tool, providing valuable insight into where businesses are exposed to risk, lack resilience and need to transform. Our training helps boards to understand:

• Why DMA is de facto global best practice for assessing exposure to sustainability-related risks;
• Why assessing impacts and dependencies on society and the environment (impact materiality) is essential to understanding risks to enterprise value (financial materiality); and
• The logic and value of carrying out DMA, whether or not regulation requires it.

Transformative change only happens if it is hardwired into the procedures and accountability frameworks that determine how a business sets and pursues its objectives. This is where legal expertise is truly indispensable to sustainable transition. Our training helps boards to understand:

• The inevitability of sustainable transition (whether by design or disaster)
• The ultimate value goal for future-fit businesses and societies – achieving high levels of wellbeing for all, within ecological limits; and
• Approaches to embedding that value goal across purpose, strategy and operations.

Greenwashing now risks much more than reputational damage and regulatory sanction. In the UK, companies and their representatives can also face criminal prosecution and unlimited fines, if they can't demonstrate adequate procedures for preventing misleading claims and statements from reaching the public domain. Our training gives clarity to boards on:

• How new laws and regulations are raising the stakes on greenwashing;
• Practical steps for preventing publication of vague, misleading or unsubstantiated claims; and
• Their duties in relation to sustainability-related disclosures, and their potential liability for false or misleading statements.