The Harvard Law School Forum on Corporate Governance https://corpgov.law.harvard.edu The leading online blog in the fields of corporate governance and financial regulation. Thu, 07 May 2026 11:32:12 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.5.8 https://corpgov.law.harvard.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/cropped-photography-4-e1706898544564-1-32x32.png Board Memo 2022: Sustainability and Beyond – The Harvard Law School Forum on Corporate Governance https://corpgov.law.harvard.edu 32 32 Board Memo 2022: Sustainability and Beyond https://corpgov.law.harvard.edu/2022/01/15/board-memo-2022-sustainability-and-beyond/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=board-memo-2022-sustainability-and-beyond https://corpgov.law.harvard.edu/2022/01/15/board-memo-2022-sustainability-and-beyond/#comments Sat, 15 Jan 2022 15:08:47 +0000 https://corpgov.law.harvard.edu/?p=142671?d=20220118092654EST Posted by Pamela Marcogliese, Sebastian Fain, and Elizabeth Bieber, Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer LLP, on Saturday, January 15, 2022
Editor's Note:

Pamela Marcogliese and Sebastian Fain are partners and Elizabeth Bieber is counsel at Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer LLP. This post is based on their Freshfields memorandum. Related research from the Program on Corporate Governance includes The Illusory Promise of Stakeholder Governance (discussed on the Forum here) and Will Corporations Deliver Value to All Stakeholders?, both by Lucian A. Bebchuk and Roberto Tallarita; For Whom Corporate Leaders Bargain by Lucian A. Bebchuk, Kobi Kastiel, and Roberto Tallarita (discussed on the Forum here); and Restoration: The Role Stakeholder Governance Must Play in Recreating a Fair and Sustainable American Economy—A Reply to Professor Rock by Leo E. Strine, Jr. (discussed on the Forum here).

As 2022 approaches, companies are confronting an ever-expanding list of internal and external pressures on their business from a strategic, operational, governance, stakeholder and regulatory perspective. Well-advised boards of directors and management teams will need to prepare for and navigate traditional as well as evolving areas of focus in order to successfully execute on the company’s strategy. As you consider the opportunities ahead, while anticipating the inevitable challenges, we invite you to review the themes we expect to be prevalent in 2022 and beyond.

Environmental, Social and Governance will continue to permeate board agendas in 2022

ESG considerations are continuing to increase in importance and are permeating additional areas of the board’s oversight framework. In 2021, more and more companies released sustainability reports tied to and benchmarked against global reporting frameworks. Many companies also re-evaluated their ESG agendas and improved the disclosure of their strategic ESG priorities in their sustainability reports and stakeholder engagement, including with respect to the calculation, verification and oversight of ESG-related metrics.

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