Mandatory corporate extraterritorial responsibilities to promote environmental, social and human rights awareness and recordkeeping have been criticised as green-washing, despite the progressive intent of such attempts. This article conducts an in-depth investigation of extraterritorial responsibility through the lens of the social licence to operate (SLO), using a hybrid methodology involving doctrinal, conceptual, black letter, interdisciplinary and socio-legal sources. We aim to give an overview of decided cases referred to the Supreme Court by the Court of Appeal, in the hope of offering academic groundwork for legalising corporate extraterritorial responsibility in the context of global value chains with the participation of multinational enterprises and various stakeholders, including those in very vulnerable positions in developing or the least developed countries. Previous research on the notion of the SLO has tended to focus on one particular industry, based on the assumption that an SLO is more relevant in corporate social responsibility (CSR)-sensitive sectors. This article will change the focus and aim to answer the question of whether building and maintaining SLOs can help companies to acquire the social legitimacy to fulfil extraterritorial social responsibility. We link the goals, ideals and breadth of SLOs to those of extraterritorial responsibility in order to provide supplementary support for legislators to achieve better compliance and risk management. We conclude that the benefits of seeking an SLO are that they can help to inform progressive extraterritorial legislative attempts, promote board accountability, and mitigate environmental and social risks.

In late 2019, the European Union presented the EU Green Deal, which targets climate neutrality by 2050. Under the EU Green Deal’s Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD), a clear sustainability reporting and assurance framework was proposed as a significant aspect of the EU Sustainable Finance Package in 2021. However, because of its exit from the EU in 2020, the UK will cease to adopt EU legislations and will have to produce its own laws to achieve climate neutrality. Against this backdrop, the purpose of this paper is to explore how best to improve the non-financial reporting mechanism in the UK, in order to assist the UK in transitioning to a more sustainable economy. This paper investigates the unique challenges for non-financial reporting in the UK caused by Brexit, and the significance and effectiveness of risk-based regulation approach in the UK. The paper proposes a ‘really responsive’ industry-based non-financial reporting framework for the UK to address its unique challenges.