Private Law Theory

ABSTRACT
In 2015, the United Nations adopted Sustainable Development Goals (‘SDGs’) with a full implementation target of 2030. The breadth and depth of the 17 Goals are significant, including ending poverty, offering quality education, affordable and clean energy, and responsible consumption and production, to name a few. Overlapping with the SDGs is the Planetary Boundary Framework (‘PBF’) designed to ensure a safe operating space for humanity while protecting Earth’s biophysical systems and processes. The SDGs and PBF are integral for the continued development and survival of future generations of humanity, and indeed the planet. These are both ambitious agendas to implement requiring collaboration by all stakeholders and countries, however, it is becoming evident that corporate participation is critical to the achievement of both the SDGs and the PBF. Scholars and activists have increasingly emphasised a strengthening of corporate social responsibility (‘CSR’) regimes and a greater emphasis on shared purpose as key planks in aligning companies and company law with these critical sustainability goals. Although companies were historically formed to solve a societal problem, a focus on profit maximisation has resulted in unfavourable practices that impact marginalised communities and challenge the sustainability of communities and the planet. Contrasted with the corporation, another type of collective business model known as the cooperative appears to have maintained a set of principles and values that extend beyond profit to align with and support many of the SDGs and the PBF. In this article, we analyse the evolution of the company as contrasted with the cooperative to argue that corporate purpose could be defined by reference to cooperative principles, the SDGs, and the PBF to ensure corporations make meaningful contributions to society and the planet.

Linda Bennison, Larelle Chapple and Kerrie Sadiq, From Corporation to Cooperation: A Meaningful Model for Corporate Purpose, Bond Law Review, volume 34, issue 2 (2024).