Why corporations & where are they heading to? Shareholders, stakeholders and sustainability in EU and China

Sustainability becomes more important than ever. While the classical manners of the operation by companies need to be reformed continuingly to adopt the upcoming new changes, one question still remains unanswered. Are companies there for their shareholder, stakeholders or more broadly the sustainability? Under the current geopolitical dynamics, the EU and China seem to have more common grounds to map their actions on sustainability. Therefore, in this Chapter, we look at the development trajectories in the EU and China, in order to explore the answer for this question. We first discuss the goal of corporations. Following that, the recent legal developments in EU and China on sustainability, directors’ duties, as well as due diligence and internal control will be examined respectively.