Battling the Board: Shareholder Activism, Sustainability, and Social Movements in Australia

The boards and management of listed companies are under increasing pressure from investors to address urgent environmental, social and governance (ESG) issues. These include concerns over their companies' contributions to climate change, protection of First Nations people's cultural heritage, elimination of modern slavery, and workers' rights more broadly. In the case of Australia, the country's economic reliance on mineral extraction places questions of environmental harm and reckoning with the rights of the country's Indigenous population at the forefront of corporate governance. Yet, unlike in comparable liberal market economies, ESG shareholder activism is a relatively new phenomenon in Australia. It is this puzzle—the drivers of the sudden emergence of ESG shareholder activism in a financial-legal system designed to stymy investor voice—that motivates this book. Ainsley Elbra identifies significant governance gaps between societal expectations and corporate behavior. Integrating social movement theory and corporate governance frameworks, Elbra demonstrates the potential of market-based activism to drive change within corporations and industries. She warns, however, that successful social movements can be undermined by government intervention. Battling the Board makes an important contribution to the understanding of how shareholder activists leverage corporate governance mechanisms to shape political economic outcomes that have direct consequences for sustainability and climate change.