B. In applying the UNGPs and other relevant standards, the Commission should consider the impacts of the Carbon Majors’ products and apply an Enterprise Approach In the context of this national inquiry, the Commission should take a purposive approach and apply Principles 11 and 13 of the UNGPs, which provide that business enterprises must avoid “causing or contributing to adverse human rights impacts through their own activities,” as well as those that are “directly linked to their operations, products or services,” as directed by the Interpretive Guidance of the UNGPs.301 The Interpretive Guidance confirms that an enterprise can contribute to an adverse human rights impact through the legal sale of its products. 302 The evidence demonstrates that the respondents have, through their operations and products, caused the emissions of greenhouse gases in such significant quantities as to have contributed to climate change, and to impose on them specific and particular obligations in respect of the human rights impacts of climate change.303 The Commission should accept that a reference in the Petition to the Carbon Majors or a particular corporate group should be taken as a reference to the parent entity or entities in whose name the accounts of the group are consolidated in accordance with the rules of the jurisdiction in which the parent is incorporated or listed for trading on a stock exchange. 304 This is the intent of the Petition and is also because the Guiding Principles apply to “all business enterprises, both transnational and others, regardless of their size, sector, location, ownership and structure.” 305 For the purposes of this fact-finding investigation, the Commission should adopt an enterprise theory of corporate personhood, meaning that the activities of the whole group of companies (and specifically the greenhouse gas emissions attributable to the group as a whole) should be aggregated and attributed to the parent entity. This approach should be adopted on the following grounds: 1. 2. 3. It provides a practical way to assess the activities of multinational corporations whose operations and products produce greenhouse gas emissions across multiple jurisdictions, and reflects the manner in which these organizations in fact operate; It is the accepted approach in the context of human rights violations resulting from the activity of multinational entities, and is adopted by the United Nations (in the Guiding Principles) and the OECD in its Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises;306 It overcomes the formalism of an entity theory which “ignores the economic reality of the relationship between parent corporations and their subsidiaries” and better aligns with the expectations of the public; 301 ClientEarth brief, at ¶ 88. Id. at ¶¶ 90-91. 303 Id. at ¶ 92. 304 Id. at ¶ 96. 305 Id. at ¶ 97. 306 The OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises state that the Guidelines “extend to enterprise groups...Compliance and control systems should extend where possible to these subsidiaries.” Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises, II, General Policies, Commentaries, ¶ 9 (OECD Publishing, 2011), http://dx.doi.org/10.1787/9789264115415-en. 302 62