Sustainability and Competition Law: Moving Beyond the Conflict Narrative Towards a Structured Debate

By: Julian Nowag (OECD on the Level)

Sustainability has been on the agenda of international organisations and States, for many years. Not least since 1987, when the famous UN World Commission in its report ‘Our Common Future (also known as Brundtland Report) provided the now well-known definition of sustainability:

Sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.

UN World Commission

With global warming, the businesses community has increasingly embraced the concept and a drive for more sustainable business activity is visible.

Competition authorities are thus more frequently confronted with questions around sustainability and competition although, from a competition agency’s perspective, regulation to achieve sustainability might be the preferred option. The debate around sustainability and competition is occasionally reduced to competition vs public policy. This is an unhelpful simplification that suggests a clear dividing line and binary choice between them….