Heidelberg | Harvard Cooperation – The Future of Corporate Sustainability
As part of the strategic partnership between Heidelberg University and Harvard University, the project “The Future of Corporate Sustainability” receives funding from the Heidelberg | Harvard Explorer Seed Fund.
This funding is part of the institutional cooperation between the two universities. It is based on a Memorandum of Understanding and supported by the state of Baden-Württemberg with a total of ten million euros.
Project Overview
The project examines the transformation of corporate law in the context of sustainability-related regulation. It focuses on how corporate sustainability is evolving from a legal, economic, and institutional perspective – particularly in the tension between European and U.S. legal systems.
Special emphasis is placed on:
- the codification and internalization of sustainability requirements (in particular the EU supply chain law),
- the role of private actors and markets in enforcing ESG standards,
- and the transnational fragmentation of sustainability-related regulation.
The project combines comparative legal, economic, and regulatory perspectives and aims to provide a doctrinal analysis of evolving corporate governance structures.
Participants
Harvard University
Heidelberg University
- Professor Marc-Philippe Weller
- Professor Christoph A. Kern
- Dr. Sophia Schwemmer
- Moritz Böbel
- Tim Fischer
- Laura Müller
Project Structure and Activities
The project is designed as a multi-year collaborative initiative (2026–2027) and includes in particular:
- workshops and lectures in Heidelberg and at Harvard
- joint research visits
- an international symposium
- publication projects (including an edited volume and scholarly articles)
Among the activities planned for 2026 are:
- a lecture and workshop in Heidelberg with Professor Mariana Pargendler
- additional joint teaching and research initiatives
Opening Lecture with Professor Mariana Pargendler
We are delighted to welcome Professor Mariana Pargendler to Heidelberg as part of our project. Mariana Pargendler is one of the most distinguished scholars in corporate and business law today. Through her innovative research, she has significantly shaped global debates on the future of corporations, markets, and regulation.
The Evolving Intersection of Corporate and Environmental Law
📅 9 June 2026, 4:00 p.m. (c.t.)
📍 Neue Universität Heidelberg, Lecture Hall 14
The lecture will explore current developments at the intersection of corporate law, sustainability, and climate responsibility, as well as emerging global governance structures for corporations.
Following the lecture, all guests are warmly invited to a reception in the courtyard of the Institute for Comparative and Private International Law.
Registration: https://forms.cloud.microsoft/r/PqtAG17yf9
Read the flyer
Go the website click here
The Evolving Intersection between Corporate and Environmental Law
As part of the strategic partnership between Heidelberg University and Harvard University, Professor Mariana Pargendler (Harvard Law School) delivered the inaugural lecture of the joint research project “The Future of Corporate Sustainability,” funded by the Heidelberg | Harvard Explorer Seed Fund, on 9 June. In her lecture, The Evolving Intersection between Corporate and Environmental Law, she examined the changing relationship between corporate and environmental law, demonstrating how traditional principles of corporate law are being reconsidered in light of emerging demands for sustainability and corporate responsibility.
Drawing on her research on corporate separateness, Pargendler argued that the conventional understanding of separate legal personality as implying complete legal insulation between affiliated companies rests on a misconception. While separate legal personality allocates rights and obligations to distinct legal entities, it does not necessarily entail absolute legal independence across all areas of law. Indeed, corporate law itself already contains numerous mechanisms of entity transparency, particularly in the context of corporate groups.
As an illustration, Pargendler pointed to the Brazilian experience, where the 1937 Labor Code imposed joint and several liability on firms belonging to the same economic group for labour obligations. By highlighting this early form of enterprise liability—developed well before the enactment of modern German group law—she challenged the conventional narrative that corporate group law originated exclusively in Germany. She further explained that environmental law increasingly departs from strict corporate separateness where it would frustrate effective remedies for environmental harm. Against this background, she proposed viewing the corporation not as a perfectly insulating “nonconductor” but rather as a semi-permeable membrane, allowing legal permeability where necessary to protect overriding public interests.
The second part of the lecture focused on non-governmental organizations (NGOs) as key drivers of modern external corporate governance. While traditional accounts of corporate governance emphasize internal actors such as shareholders, managers, and employees, Pargendler demonstrated that NGOs increasingly shape corporate behaviour through legislation, strategic litigation, shareholder proposals, soft-law initiatives, and public advocacy campaigns. In particular, they have played a significant role in the emergence of supply chain legislation, ESG standards, and climate-related regulation. The multiplicity of governance channels available to NGOs gives rise to what Pargendler termed a “hydraulic effect”: when one avenue of influence is constrained, advocacy efforts tend to migrate to alternative mechanisms.
Overall, the lecture illustrated that corporate law is increasingly evolving at the intersection of sustainability, regulation, and societal responsibility. The gradual erosion of strict corporate separateness, together with the growing influence of external actors, demonstrates that contemporary corporate governance is shaped not only by internal corporate structures but also by the interaction of regulation, transnational actors, and broader societal interests.
Further Information
Press release by Heidelberg University on the Harvard partnership
Partnership Between Heidelberg and Harvard: Implementation of Initial Projects Begins
