The stewardship company
In this article, the authors examine the usefulness and necessity of the initiative proposal for the stewardship company that was drawn up in response to a motion (16 April 2024) by Sneller and Zeedijk
Proposal for the Principles of the Steward Company
Following the motion by Joost Sneller and Femke Zeedijk-Raeven which passed in the House of Representatives in 2024 to develop a proposal for the steward company, N-EXTLAW’s Nena van der Horst, along with Emilie van Blokland, Rutger Marres, Sophie Kuijpers, Casper Nagtegaal, Jorick Wijnen, Melanie Rieback, Gijsbert Koren have been working on the principles for a steward company. View the published document here.
Sustainable by Design: Industrial Policy for Long-Term Competitiveness in the EU
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.
Purpose-Driven Companies as Non-Extractive Legal Forms – A comparative study of English and Danish Supervisory Systems
N-EXTLAW Working Paper Series No. 10/2024
In recent years, an increasing number of companies have been motivated by social responsibility, striving to conduct their operations in an environmentally and socially conscious manner. Social and purpose-driven enterprises are often subject to external controls by public authorities of national legal systems. This paper will focus on the external supervision system for English and Danish forms of purpose-driven company to provide an answer to the functional question: which system between the English and Danish systems offers the best type of supervision for national purpose-driven enterprises?
Policy Proposal: Transition Reserve and Transition Investment Plan for Large Polluters (English Version)
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.
Policy Proposal: Transition Reserve and Transition Investment Plan for Large Polluters (Dutch Version)
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.
Industrial Policy for a Sustainable European Economy: Toward Ownership that Works for People
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.
PAR Study in the Netherlands Summary
In this blog, Amy and Nena give an overview of our ongoing PAR study in the Netherlands. They reflect upon the knowledge gathered through recent sessions held by the N-EXLAW team in connection our study participants, detailing the key outcomes. It further provides information on current projects resulting from these consultations. These include Profit in Purpose-Driven Enterprises, the proposal for a Transition Reserve, Patagonia and Steward Ownership, and a Non-Extractive Legal Form. This blog concludes by outlining the next stages of our research and what the team has planned for the near future.
Experimental Regulation for Social Innovations
N-EXTLAW Working Paper Series, no. 1 (2/2022).
The current economic model is damaging the social and environmental resources it relies on. This extractive model is structured by a legal system which overly focuses on economic growth instead of social and sustainable purposes. Where a legal system is based on competition and controlling organizations driven by short-term profits, organizations which tend to pursue positive contributions in the long-term experience obstructions. This paper takes social innovations as a starting point and explores how unnecessary regulatory burdens can be removed for this type of social innovation through experimental regulation.
Taking the Green Transition Seriously: A Proposal for a ‘Transition Reserve’ Enabling Transition of Large Emitters in the Netherlands
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.
‘Levelling the Playing Field: Making the BVm Viable’
In this blog, Zafar discusses the uneven playing field between social and commercial enterprises due to the difficulties social enterprises face when attracting financing. Examining the Dutch BVm proposal and its lack of incentives, Zafar looks at other attempts to stimulate social enterprise financing within the UK, Italy and the Netherlands and proposes to modify the BVm proposal by banning the possibility of converting a BVm to a BV and instating hard requirements regarding profit distribution.
Reimagining Extractive Capitalism: Learning from Italy’s Banca di Credito Cooperativo
In this blog, Laetitia and Kinanya take Italy’s Banca di Credito Cooperativo (location Valdarno Fiorentino) as an example of a non-extractive economic practice and discuss the various ways it demonstrates how we can reimagine capitalism and transition towards a non-extractive economy. Through an exploration of the importance of the mutuality principle, community-centricity and pursuit of social inclusion within Banca di Credito Cooperativo, Laetitia and Kinanya discuss how BCC operates as a socially and environmentally sustainable bank and how this may serve more widely as inspiration for rethinking both the purpose and meaning of banking within society.
Discussing the Benefits and Challenges of Working with Participatory Action Research (PAR): Reflections from N-EXTLAW’s PAR Workshop
In July 2021, N-EXTLAW hosted an online workshop on Participatory Action Research, ‘Understanding, applying and experiencing Participatory Action Research (PAR): A cross-disciplinary conversation’. This blog post reflects upon the presentations given in this workshop and the key comments and discussions which arose out of them. It will first provide a brief overview of PAR and why this methodology has been adopted within the N-EXTLAW project, followed by an outline of the workshop’s goals and participants. Each of the two panels will then be considered individually, with a final comment on the overall reflections and N-EXTLAW’s future plans for collaboration.
Sustainable Contracting for a Non-Extractive Economy
N-EXTLAW Working Paper Series, no. 1 (1/2023).
Business runs on contracts, making them one of the most important legal vehicles compounding the effect of extractive capitalism. But the very ubiquity of contracts hides its potential to be refitted as an effective governance tool for just commercial transactions. Drawing on the theory of relational contract, this report repurposes commercial contracts as a relational governance device with a hybrid compliance mechanism that navigates the purpose-driven co-operation between the parties.
From an Extractive to a Non-Extractive Economy: Disentangling the Building Blocks of Non- Extractive Economic Practices
University of Oslo Faculty of Law Research Paper No. 2022-39 International and Comparative Corporate Law Journal, Volume 15, 2022, Issue 2, p. 13-34.
This paper articulates the various ways in which organisations can be designed for non-extractiveness, focusing on the organisation’s purpose, revenue model, legal structure, internal distribution of benefits, internal distribution of decision-making power, culture, and environmental and societal impacts. A deep understanding of the various ways these organisations can be non-extractive can inspire lawyers to ensure that law is designed in such a way as to facilitate people and planet thriving in balance.
De toekomst van winstuitkeringen aan aandeelhouders in een maatschappelijk ondernemingsrecht
Tijdschrift Ondernemingsrecht, 2023/98.
De afgelopen vijf à tien jaar is in Ne der land en Europa een ontwikkeling zichtbaar waarin met het ondernemingsrecht wordt geprobeerd te bewerkstelligen dat grote ven noot schap pen hun negatieve impact op mens en milieu inperken. Het wettelijk systeem voor winstuitkeringen aan aan deel hou ders kan hierin een belangrijke rol spelen, maar is als on der werp in de discussie vooralsnog onderbelicht. Een uitzondering vormt de aanzet voor een wettelijke regeling voor de maatschappelijke BV (BVm), waarin voor het eerst wordt voorgesteld om maatschappelijke doelen een plek te geven in de wettelijke winstuitkeringsregeling.
