Episode 006: "We’re on a very certain path towards a very uncertain future."

Nomosphone: A Global Law Podcast

There is no shortage of climate markers suggesting that we are marching towards an uncertain environmental future. In the current efforts to halt and reverse our environmental degradation, there is virtually no questioning of whether we can have sustainability in a world of global capitalism and it is inconceivable that continuing with our traditional global investment scheme will get us through the rest of this century. Ongoing deterioration of the global climate has precipitated an urgency for new, innovative means to shift towards a more sustainable scheme of our global economic markets. Legal incorporation of principles of Socially Responsible Investing (SRI) into global investment mandates has been proposed as a means to fundamentally shift global investment mentality and operations towards greater environmental protection and sustainability. We set out to evaluate if SRI can be integrated into our global scheme and how the codification of these principles within corporate and investment law may help achieve their stated goals. We focused our investigation on an area where incorporation of SRI is already underway and has shown some success, namely sovereign wealth funds. And what better investment fund to lead this charge than the largest, most extensive, and most likely to form a model for legal transplantation to other industries - the Norwegian Sovereign Wealth Fund. Join us as we explore efforts to address what is arguably the defining challenge of our time. We thank Dr. Beate Sjåfjell, professor of corporate law and sustainability at the University of Oslo and Dr. Benjamin Richardson, professor of environmental law and the financial sector at the University of Tasmania and Visiting Chair of our Global Law Programme for their enthusiastic participation in this episode. Be sure to subscribe to our Soundcloud and Facebook pages to stay up to date on our most recent episodes. And if you like what we do, please leave us a review in iTunes - it really helps get the word out about Nomosphone! A special thanks to Hindenburg podcast editing software. We acknowledge the following songs used in their original format in accordance with Creative Commons licensing: "Just Watching", “Golden Hour“, "Bumble", and “Blue” by Podington Bear (CC BY-NC 3.0) and https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/legalcode.