IMPROVING TRANSPARENCY ON
CORPORATE SUSTAINABILITY on research by
JILL FISCH Saul A. Fox Distinguished Professor of Business Law; Co-Director, Institute for Law and Economics
JILL FISCH
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Corporate shareholders are increasingly interested in learning more about the societal impact of the companies in which they invest. Companies have addressed this interest by increasing their sustainability disclosures, but most such disclosures are voluntary and vary substantially among companies. Responding to the rise in attention to sustainability issues, a new article by University of Pennsylvania Law School professor Jill Fisch proposes an alternative way that companies can inform shareholders about their corporate sustainability practices within the framework of required Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) disclosures. “Making Sustainability Disclosures Sustainable,” recently published in the Georgetown Law Journal, argues that the SEC should require companies subject to its jurisdiction to include a “sustainability discussion and analysis” (SD&A) in their annual reports. Fisch is the Saul A. Fox Distinguished Professor of Business Law and Co-Director of the Institute for Law and Economics. She is a widely cited and internationally-known scholar whose work focuses on the intersection of business and law. “Currently, there is no consensus on a precise definition of ‘sustainability[,]’” writes Fisch. “Use of the term is often traced to a 1987 United Nations report defining sustainability as ‘[actions that]… meet the needs and aspirations of the present without compromising the ability to meet those of the future.’” For example, sustainability might refer to the impact of corporate practices on the environment, or a company’s practices relating to executive compensation or board diversity — generally, issues that implicate a larger societal impact.
