The state of corporate governance in the era of sustainability risks and opportunities

In doing so, it provides a review of the international corporate governance landscape. Our intention is to help boards more fully address the spectrum of challenges they face. In order to achieve this, it’s important to understand fully why some boards are integrating sustainability issues into their mainstream governance practices and why others aren’t. The findings presented here are based on a study of international corporate governance, from a regulatory, business and academic perspective.

The qualitative and quantitative research was compiled from secondary data sources. The regulatory research was collated from accredited sources such as Thomson Reuters1 and The Law Reviews,2 while the business research was collected from public company information found within annual and integrated reports. In addition, to provide a holistic view of the landscape of corporate governance, the study also included academic research as well as literature published by multilateral organizations.

The research scope covers  12 jurisdictions; Brazil, China, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Japan, The Netherlands, Singapore, South Africa, Thailand, the United Kingdom and the United States. The research also focused on publicly available information from a sample of 56 companies across these 12 jurisdictions, with a focus on the food and agricultural sector.

This study comments on the ways in which these 12 jurisdictions promote effective governance practices and how companies are meeting these expectations. The paper closes by discussing the ways in which companies can integrate sustainability into their corporate governance systems. The data in this report was collected and analyzed between July and December 2018.