Center for Business Sustainability

To deal with global or trans-boundary sustainability issues, such as climate change, biodiversity, and human rights etc., governments have been negotiating and concluding various types of international instruments, ranging from legally binding international treaties to non-binding soft law instruments. These instruments serve as guiding principles for governments to make regulatory decisions. Subsequently, national legislation and policies are adopted as a result of governments’ compliance with these international treaties. On the other hand, considering the environmental and social impact of multinational enterprise, an increasing number of non-binding soft law international instruments targeting multinational enterprises have also emerged with the aim of persuading these enterprises to incorporate relevant sustainability standards into their corporate management strategies. These international and national laws and policies are crucial external driving forces that help to guide enterprises to pursue and design their sustainability strategies and goals. Consequently, the main research objective of this sub-group is to closely monitor and analyze international and national laws and policies relating to sustainability issues that are of concern to enterprises.