
Michael Thorburn
Michael H.F. Thorburn is a doctoral candidate at Stanford Law School whose research bridges labor law, environmental sustainability, corporate governance, and organizational behavior. His work focuses on the role of collective bargaining agreements, or "green clauses," in advancing workplace climate action and sustainability. By integrating methods from the social sciences and machine learning, Michael examines how legal and organizational tools can drive environmental and social governance goals within complex systems.
Project Description
This project examines the diffusion of environmentally-focused collective bargaining language, or "green clauses," across industries and union networks. Leveraging social network analysis and longitudinal methods, it explores how union-driven strategies propagate successful environmental provisions, tracing the role of key actors like hub unions and flagship workplaces in accelerating adoption. The research also investigates the iterative strengthening of green clauses over bargaining cycles, analyzing how clauses evolve in response to external pressures, stakeholder learning, and shifts in organizational priorities. This interdisciplinary study aims to illuminate the dynamics of labor agreements as tools for advancing workplace sustainability and broader environmental governance goals.