SOCIAL DIMENSION OF CLIMATE POLICY AND INTERNATIONAL LAW: ESG AND THE INTEGRATION OF CORPORATE REPORTING INTO SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOVERNANCE

Abstract

This article investigates how evolving frameworks of corporate social responsibility and environmental, social and governance regulation shape the social dimension of climate policy in the European Union, the United States and Ukraine. It traces the gradual shift from corporate social responsibility as a voluntary, reputational practice towards its juridification and integration into climate and sustainable development governance. The analysis is based on qualitative doctrinal and structured comparative methods and focuses on legal and policy instruments. In the European Union, corporate social responsibility has progressively evolved into a dense system of binding environmental, social and governance obligations, forming an emerging acquis on corporate sustainability. A set of EU legal acts transforms sustainability reporting and due diligence into legal duties, extends responsibility along global value chains and operationalizes concepts such as double materiality and just transition. Corporate social responsibility and environmental, social and governance obligations are not confined to a single policy field but cut across company law, environmental and climate policy, and the protection of fundamental rights, thereby linking corporate governance with climate mitigation, environmental protection and social justice. By contrast, in the United States, the dominant trajectory remains one of voluntary, market- and reputation-driven corporate social responsibility and climate engagement. Ukraine occupies a hybrid position between these models: as a candidate for EU membership, it is required to approximate its legislation to the EU acquis in the fields of company law, environment and climate change, and fundamental rights, including through the phased introduction of sustainability reporting based on European Sustainability Reporting Standards and the broader integration of environmental, social and governance considerations into corporate and public governance. The analysis demonstrates that the social dimension of climate policy is not an ancillary concern but a constitutive element of contemporary climate governance. Corporate social responsibility can contribute meaningfully to climate neutrality and sustainable development only when embedded in legal and institutional arrangements that render the social and human-rights consequences of climate transition visible, reportable and, to some extent, enforceable. In this sense, the transformation of corporate social responsibility into binding environmental, social and governance obligations in the European Union, the persistence of predominantly voluntary approaches in the United States and the cross-sectoral, capacity-dependent challenges faced by Ukraine offer contrasting, yet interconnected, pathways for integrating social justice and human rights into climate policy.