Greenwashing, Greenhushing and Greenrinsing: New challenges in corporate climate reporting

About the presentation:

As the planet enters dangerous levels of warming, corporations face increasing pressure to measure and report their carbon emissions and climate action strategies. The pressure to improve reporting has seen investors take companies to court, governments move to mandatory reporting, and regulators require risk testing to protect whole systems. This places new and unique pressures on corporate reporters to get it right by navigating the new requirements and transitioning to sustainable business models while maintaining profitability.

This panel event will feature 2024 Gourlay Visiting Professor of Ethics in Business, Mette Morsing, Director of the Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment at the University of Oxford. Professor Morsing will be joined by experts from the University of Melbourne, Associate Professor of Accounting and a Director of the Centre for Accounting and Industry Partnerships, Brad Potter, and ARC Laureate Professor of Climate Law, Jackie Peel, Director of Melbourne Climate Futures. 

About the speakers:

Professor Mette Morsing, Director of the Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment at the University of Oxford

Mette Morsing is the Professor of Business Sustainability and Director of the Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment at the University of Oxford, UK.  In this role, she leads a team of more than 120 scholars committed to achieving Net Zero and developing Nature-Based-Solutions (NBS) towards the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).  She also serves on several Councils and Advisory Boards worldwide (USA, Europe, Asia, China, UK). She previously served the United Nations, New York (USA), where she led UN Principles for Management Education, the UN’s largest initiative for responsible management education with over 800 universities and business schools to transform leadership education towards the SDGs. Before that she was a Professor at Copenhagen Business School (Denmark) and Stockholm School of Economics (Sweden), in both schools she was the Director for research centres on sustainability. 

She has done research in the areas of business ethics, leadership, strategy and cross-sector partnerships for sustainable development. Her research has won international awards and recognition, and she is an invited author, researcher and speaker globally. Having published extensively in the world’s most highly regarded academic journals on business and sustainability, she recently co-edited the textbook “Corporate Sustainability: Managing Responsible Business in a Globalised World” by Cambridge University Press. 

Professor Jackie Peel, Director of Melbourne Climate Futures

Jackie is the Director of Melbourne Climate Futures and a Professor at Melbourne Law School. She is a leading, internationally-recognised expert in the field of environmental and climate change law and an elected Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences Australia. She has published widely in climate and environmental law, including leading monographs on Climate Litigation and Principles of International Environmental Law. Among many professional roles, Jackie has served as the Treasurer of the Australian & New Zealand Society of International Law, as a Co-Chair of the American Society of International Law’s Signature Initiative on Climate Change and as a Lead Author in Working Group III of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) 6th Assessment Report. She is on the editorial board of Transnational Environmental Law and is a co-founder of the Women’s Energy and Climate Law Network. 

Jackie was a Fulbright and Hauser Scholar at NYU and has held visiting scholar positions at the University of California, Berkeley, and the Woods Institute for the Environment at Stanford University. In 2022, she is directing the Centre for Studies and Research Program on Climate Change and International Law at The Hague Academy of International Law.

Associate Professor Brad Potter, Director of the Centre for Accounting and Industry Partnerships

Brad is an Associate Professor in Accounting at the University of Melbourne and head, of the Department of Accounting. He is an experienced educator, having developed and delivered subjects in accounting at all levels of undergraduate and post graduate students, as well as seminars sand masterclasses to corporate groups both in Australia and outside. In research, he collaborates with key organisations and individuals in accounting and business, including CPA Australia, CA ANZ, key NGOS, accounting standard setters and government regulators. Much of this work focuses on the measurement and disclosure approaches used by entities to communicate diverse information relating to performance, position and social and environmental impact and the relevance of that information for stakeholders. This work is disseminated widely through presentations and publications to practitioner and academic audiences and has helped shape financial, and sustainability reporting guidance issued for Australian entities.

Associate Professor Ben Neville, Deputy Director, Strategic Partnerships and Community Impact 

Ben is an Associate Professor in the Department of Management & Marketing, Faculty of Business and Economics at the University of Melbourne. Ben researches and teaches in sustainable business and society, including corporate social responsibility, business ethics, ethical consumption and social entrepreneurship. He is a Section Editor of the Corporate Responsibility (Theory and Qualitative) section of the leading international academic Journal of Business Ethics. At the University, he serves as the Gourlay Fellow of Ethics in Business, and the Sustainability in the Curriculum Fellow for the Faculty of Business and Economics. Ben is also the Coordinator of the Governance, Policy and Markets Stream in the Master of Environment, Chair of the University's Fair Trade Steering Committee, and sits on the Executive Committee of the Melbourne Sustainable Society Institute.