BRUYLANT SUSTAINABILITY, SOCIAL REPRODUCTION AND THE FUTURE OF LABOUR LAW Vera PAVLOU School of Law, University of Glasgow Vera.Pavlou@glasgow.ac.uk Introduction Discussions around the climate change crisis and the need to transition into a lower carbon economy are now ubiquitous. Organisations at dif- ferent governance levels have placed the language of sustainability high on their agendas and are developing multiple initiatives geared towards building a sustainable future.(1) Labour law scholarship, which has also been engaged in intense debates on the discipline’s crisis and future direc- tions for some time now, has traditionally shied away from sustainability concerns. Sustainability issues were not traditionally perceived as fall- ing within the discipline’s usual scope and concerns, which are normally structured around the fundamental aim of mitigating the imbalance of power between employers and workers. Labour law, however, can be highly relevant for sustainability agendas, especially when sustainabil- ity is understood as encompassing not only environmental, but also eco- nomic and social issues. At the same time, the current global emphasis on sustainability creates momentum for the renewal of labour law’s con- tents and arguments. Beyond mitigating the inequality between employ- ers and workers, ensuring socio-economic sustainability enriches labour law’s normative foundations and aims and increases its relevance for one of the most important law and policy debates of our times. During the last few years, an emerging but growing body of labour law scholarship has started drawing connections between labour law and what have come to be considered the three ‘pillars’ of (1) The most prominent example is of course the United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, adopted in 2015, which includes 17 Sustainable Development Goals and 169 targets. Since its adoption, the UN 2030 Agenda has become a point of reference for the work of other orga- nisations such as the International Labour Organisation (ILO), the European Commission and the European Parliament. 403416AUD_AVDROTRA_CC2021_PC.indd 657 403416AUD_AVDROTRA_CC2021_PC.indd 657 18/01/2023 10:05:45 18/01/2023 10:05:45