Controlling the Environmental Impacts of UK Fast Fashion Companies: Do B Corps provide a way forward?

Abstract

This thesis is looking at the problem of the environmental harm caused by the fast fashion sector, and how the law might seek to regulate this harm. It focuses specifically on regulation that targets companies involved in the production and sale of fast fashion, so in this sense, it looks at how ‘corporate law’ might address the environmental harm. However, it does not look at all that corporate law might have to say. Instead, its focus is again narrower. It's asking, specifically, how far corporate law can go by merely enforcing the commitments which companies themselves make to acting in an environmentally responsible way. Many companies often - for a variety of reasons - choose to make commitments to behave well. In this sense, some companies 'self-select' to be more environmentally responsible. This thesis focuses on how effectively corporate law can enforce these self-imposed commitments.

The main area in which it analyses the law's ability to enforce these self-imposed constraints is through its analysis of so-called 'B Corps' – a private label certifying a company’s commitment to ESG – an institutionalised form of self-imposed constraints.