An Estoppel-Based Approach to Enforcing Corporate Environmental Responsibilities

Attenborough, D.

doi:10.1093/jel/eqw012

An Estoppel-Based Approach to Enforcing Corporate Environmental Responsibilities

Attenborough, D.

Authors

Professor Daniel Attenborough daniel.attenborough@durham.ac.uk
Professor

Abstract

Within the regulatory space that exists at the intersection of UK company law and environmental regulation, the business community has generated its own environmental governance initiatives to address growing anxiety about companies’ externalised risk. Yet, there is currently nothing in law to prevent companies from frequently acting inconsistently with these voluntary unilateral assurances, which has led to widespread concern that environmental values are treated as merely instrumental to the dominant idea of achieving economic benefits for the company. This article examines a specific case for the legal facilitation of binding obligations owed to the environment, which require a company to make good on its previous commitments about environmental responsibility. It seeks to demonstrate that this is possible through the common law doctrine of estoppel, which can be opened up to prevent a company from acting inconsistently with its previous statements or actions about the governance of environmental risk.

Citation

Attenborough, D. (2016). An Estoppel-Based Approach to Enforcing Corporate Environmental Responsibilities. Journal of Environmental Law, 28(2), 275-299. https://doi.org/10.1093/jel/eqw012

Journal Article Type	Article
Acceptance Date	Mar 10, 2016
Online Publication Date	Jul 8, 2016
Publication Date	Jul 8, 2016
Deposit Date	Mar 10, 2016
Publicly Available Date	Jul 8, 2018
Journal	Journal of Environmental Law
Print ISSN	0952-8873
Electronic ISSN	1464-374X
Publisher	Oxford University Press
Peer Reviewed	Peer Reviewed
Volume	28
Issue	2
Pages	275-299
DOI	https://doi.org/10.1093/jel/eqw012

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Copyright Statement
This is a pre-copyedited, author-produced PDF of an article accepted for publication in Journal of Environmental Law following peer review. The version of record Attenborough, D. (2016). An Estoppel-Based Approach to Enforcing Corporate Environmental Responsibilities. Journal of Environmental Law 28(2): 275-299 is available online at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/jel/eqw012.