regulatory reform

You sometimes hear people refer to CSR as "beyond the law" - that is, the good things that companies do over and beyond legal requirements. But we don't think it makes sense to separate CSR and the law in that way, for two reasons. First, because how a company goes about meeting its legal requirements - and the quality of its legal compliance systems - is an important part of being "socially responsible". And, second, because "regulation" is so much more than governments simply telling companies what to do. Companies are "regulated" by a diverse group of actors - shareholders, consumers, NGOs and trade unions just to name a few. Effective CSR regulation is all about harnessing those pressures in such a way that good and socially responsible performance is rewarded, and bad behaviour discouraged. In some cases minimum standards and criminal sanctions may be the best way to achieve this. In other cases other options - market-based incentives or transparency initiatives, for instance - may be more appropriate.

CSR-type issues - health and safety, the environment, consumer protection and employee relations, for example - are already highly regulated in most countries. But the law does not always operate as well as it could, nor does it respond to new developments as quickly as it should. Globalisation, climate change, new technologies and the current economic downturn all pose substantial regulatory challenges - and also terrific opportunities to formulate new regulatory responses that yield better results for companies and society as a whole.

We are at the cutting edge of new regulatory developments in CSR. With a wealth of regulatory experience behind us in both public and private sectors, we bring both intellectual rigor and practical knowledge to the complex field of CSR law and regulation.

We don't approach projects with pre-conceived ideas. Just because things have always been done a certain way does not mean that there is not a better regulatory solution. We probe and challenge conventional thinking about regulatory techniques. We test and analyse regulatory strategies and experiences from different countries. And we give our clients the information and help they need to ensure that their contributions to regulatory debates are always relevant, considered, efficient and, most of all, well informed.