The world is facing a number of interrelated environmental crises that pose an existential threat: from unprecedented changes to the Earth's climate system to rapid losses of biodiversity in crucial biomes. Policymakers, governments, businesses and activists agree that, in order to effectively avert such crises, the financial system will play a crucial role in any attempt to avert those crises; most notably, by channelling capital to projects that will aim to mitigate (or adapt to) the effects of those crises.

This course provides a systematic examination of the role that law can play to support the mobilisation of the financial system to support attempts to avert those crises. The course develops such an examination using two complementary frameworks: one that identifies some of the most relevant parts of the legal system to support the development of sustainable finance (i.e. contract law, financial regulation, company law, and HHRR law), and another one that identifies five different levels of analysis in sustainable finance (i.e. product, company, market, financial system and society). These two frameworks inform the structure and content of the course.

Among the various jurisdictions that are currently developing legal and regulatory frameworks to support the development of sustainable finance, the EU has arguably produced the most comprehensive framework. To support the systematic examination of the role of law in sustainable finance, the course relies on the legal and regulatory frameworks developed by the EU to develop that systematic examination. Nevertheless, students will be encouraged to reflect on how the systematic examination of the role of law in the EU frameworks might inform similar examinations in other jurisdictions.

10 x 2-hour seminars.

None

n/a

Client Workshop (50%): Students will play the role of lawyers advising client financial institutions (e.g. a bank or an asset manager) on legal and regulatory matters relating to sustainable finance. They will work in teams of 4 to analyse a set of documents describing the sustainability of a fictitious client and educate the client on their need to understand and care about the law and regulation of sustainable finance by: i) identifying and explaining the legal and regulatory framework that will be applicable to the client, ii) identifying what outputs the client will be expected to produce to comply with that framework, and iii) identify the kinds of problems the client could face if they do not comply with the applicable framework. Students will be asked to deliver a 45-minute presentation to a fictitious client, with the lecturer (or lecturers) playing the role of the fictitious client, to be followed by a 45-minute period of questions from the fictitious client. Each team's presentation will be assessed using the moderated peer-assessment method that is described in section 41 of this document. In order to replicate the conditions under which students would be expected to conduct these workshops in a professional environment, the lecturer (or lecturers) will consider the possibility of holding the workshops virtually. This will also allow for the recording of the presentations, which will facilitate their review by the second marker and the external examiner.

Written assignment (50%). The assignment will consist on a role playing exercise where teams of up to 4 students will be asked to play the role of lawyers representing a financial services provider. In their teams, students will have to prepare relevant transactional documentation for a client who wants to either issue a sustainable financial product or purchase a sustainable financial investment, and accompany that documentation with an explanatory note for their line manager to justify the choices the students made when drafting the relevant documentation. Each team's submission will have a word limit of 8,000 words, i.e. roughly 2,000 words per student. Each team's assignment will be assessed using the moderated peer-assessment method that is described in section 41 of this document.

If 4-person groups cannot be formed, the length of group assessment exercises will be adapted to ensure that the workload is the same for all students, regardless of the number of students in their group. This includes any reassessment opportunities.

This course aims to provide students with a comprehensive understanding of how law and regulation can support the mobilisation of the financial system to address the climate emergency and other, interrelated, environmental crises. In particular, the course will examine the role that law and regulation can play to support the provision of finance and investment by private institutions to business operations that aim to mitigate (or adapt to) those environmental crises.

By the end of this course, students will be able to:

■ explain the origins and evolution of sustainable finance;

■ distinguish and compare the respective roles of finance and corporate decision-making in facilitating more sustainable business models and economies;

■ identify and explain the legal and regulatory techniques adopted by the EU to support the development of sustainable finance;

■ identify and explain the key legal rules and principles comprising the legal and regulatory frameworks that the EU is developing to support the development of sustainable finance; 

■ apply the relevant legal rules and principles to solve practical problems of the law and regulation of sustainable finance in different organisational contexts (e.g. corporate issuers of sustainable investment securities, banks providing sustainable financial services, and asset managers developing sustainable investment funds).

■ undertake a critical evaluation of current debates and reform proposals in the field;

■ critically evaluate the role of the market and the law in developing sustainable finance.

Students must submit at least 75% by weight of the components (including examinations) of the course's summative assessment.