To make Europe’s economy more competitive and sustainable at the same time, we call for a new industrial policy for ‘sustainable by design’ organizations in order to reap the competitive benefits of ownership forms that favor reinvestment, innovation and resilience.
A policy proposal requiring large polluters to maintain a ‘transition reserve’ and develop meaningful ‘transition investment plans.’ It builds on their recent working paper: Taking the Green Transition Seriously: A Proposal for a ‘Transition Reserve’. This policy proposal outlines the potential legal mechanisms by which the ‘transition reserve’ and ‘transition investment plan’ could be implemented in the European context.
A policy proposal requiring large polluters to maintain a ‘transition reserve’ and develop meaningful ‘transition investment plans.’ It builds on their recent working paper: Taking the Green Transition Seriously: A Proposal for a ‘Transition Reserve’. This policy proposal outlines the potential legal mechanisms by which the ‘transition reserve’ and ‘transition investment plan’ could be implemented under Dutch law.
This text was drafted by Marija and Rutger as the conclusion of the Transformative Ownership in Times of Overlapping Crisis conference, held in Amsterdam, 5-6 October 2023. Organised alongside colleagues from Utrecht University, this conference welcomed twenty-six speakers, who discussed alternative forms of ownership across six panels and a final roundtable. We are preparing a longer collective (white) paper on the basis of the conference contributions.
N-EXTLAW Working Paper Series, no. 1 (1/2022)
Large emitters, more so than any other company, are exposed to the risk of transition. If they do not transition, they will end up with unsustainable business models and stranded assets in the not-so-distant future, eventually going bankrupt as a result. One would hope that large emitters would take this risk seriously and invest into their own transition – but this is not necessarily the case. The incentives inherent in the contemporary model of financial markets and corporate governance, alongside the possibility of public ‘bail out’, motivate companies to distribute their funds to shareholders or managers instead of investing into the green transition.
