On February 21, 2025, at the Colloquium on Climate Change and Fiduciary Duty hosted by the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law and The Millstein Center at Columbia Law School, Leo E. Strine, Jr., gave the keynote lecture, entitled Steady On: Toward Principled, Sustainable Corporate Leadership Addressing the Reality of Human-Caused Climate Change, which will be forthcoming in the Columbia Business Law Review.
In his lecture, Strine addressed lessons for corporate leaders arising out of the recent controversy about so-called ESG and about corporate consideration of social and political issues. The lecture urges corporate leaders not to repeat past mistakes by overreacting to the current moment. Instead, they should learn from this moment and develop corporate policies and deliberative strategies that are more sustainable because they relate those strategies more closely to the company’s specific business and the impact that a social issue, and climate change in particular, has on the company’s stockholders, workers, consumers, and communities of operation. In particular, the lecture underscores that, if corporate leaders focus on showing how addressing an issue is critical to the corporation’s ability to make money the right way, and thus to its sustainable profitability, they are most likely to develop sensible policies and be able to explain them to their stakeholders – and in particular to the investors who elect directors.
The complete address is available here.