Dollars and sense – charting the GC response as sustainability hits the boardroom

A tougher risk environment is taking sustainability from PC fad to board-level concern… and onto the agendas of GCs. We teamed up with Linklaters to chart the client response in a world of ‘not quite legal’ risks

In his 1962 work Capitalism and Freedom, the economist Milton Friedman complained that ‘the view has been gaining widespread acceptance that corporate officials and labour leaders have a “social responsibility” that goes beyond serving the interest of their stockholders.’ This ‘fundamental misconception’ about how markets work, argued Friedman, ought to be replaced by the consensus that the only social responsibility of business was to increase profits ‘so long as it stays within the rules of the game’.