The Role of the European Union Regulation on Business Activity with Regard to the Climate Crisis, Environmental Sustainability and Economic and Social Justice
The significant investments that mitigation of and adaptation to climate change require to fight against a transformation that accentuates inequalities demand measures to guide capital flows with specific environmental, but also economic and social, objectives. In this sense, the evolution of the reflections that various institutions have been developing around the measures leading to the transformation mentioned shows a growing role given to the private sector (along with the public) and its capacity for environmental, social and economic transformation.
This communication analyzes the extent to which collective action that generates knowledge, awareness and social context, which has resulted in increasingly strict European and Spanish regulation of business activity and governance, is conditioning business practices.
To this end, the triple impact of the sustainability metrics (non-financial information) that listed companies are required to report in Spain since 2019 has been studied: (1) the corporate strategy, (2) the relationship between the company and the different stakeholders and (3) the awareness of the people who are part of the business project. Subsequently, through interviews, the results of the analysis have been contrasted with identified key agents, analyzing the discourse and social practices generated in the field of large Spanish companies.
It can be concluded that regulation is becoming an accelerator of corporate transformation, despite the fact that the strategic orientation of its activity towards sustainable practices was already taking place.