Sustainable Companies: Spanish Mapping Paper on Company Law Issues

Abstract

Climate change is one of the main threats to sustainable development and represents one of the principal environmental challenges that affects the global economy, health, and social welfare. This study aims to examine the Spanish company law on aspects related to climate change and sustainability. This study is structured in four parts. The first one reviews Spanish environmental legislation and presents the main characteristics of Spanish companies. The second part analyses Spanish company law and voluntary initiatives focused on integrating the environmental dimension as a factor in decision-making in companies. The third part refers to corporate groups and their monitoring and duties of the company organs. And the forth part includes the possibilities and barriers from the Spanish company law for sustainable companies. The results of this study show that there is limited regulation that enforces sustainability in Spanish firms and the regulation is only addressed to listed firms, although the future development of the recent Sustainable Economy Act may shed light on some questions about environmental concerns in corporate management.