Tips for Thoughts (February 2022)
RESEARCH FOCUS
European Law Institute - ELI Project on Corporate Sustainability
Is corporate sustainability consistent with the incumbent EU framework for company and accounting law and regulation? How may EU company and accounting law facilitate sustainable business conduct in view to achieve corporate social responsibility and sustainable investments?
Our?#europeanlawinstitute ?Project panel on?#corporatesustainability ?at the ELI 2021 Annual Meeting:
More information about our ELI project here :
Climate Change Affairs
Quite a skeptic view on the EU green deal published on the WSJ:
The EU green deal is seen to spiraling-up energy prices while undermining energy security by excess reliance on renewable sources. And it promotes fully-electric cars, which demand much more energy to be produced and run on highly-polluting batteries over a shorter lifetime and with lower efficiency than regular cars.
Is this the best green deal we can? Some industrial policy dimension got lost in its making... A sustainable transition towards a more sustainable economy is not just a matter of financial markets and cap-and-trade market mechanisms for pollution rights. Industries, technologies and the business firm should be carefully considered.
Our ELI project on corporate sustainability deals with corporate sustainability from a sustainable business conduct perspective:
It is quite unfortunate that the debate on social and environmental matters of utmost importance has been nurtured by bold claims made up to scare and persuade, rather than careful analyses and thoughtful development of viable alternatives, including for agriculture, transport and energy.
Those claims generate nuisible noise and may cover up for inconsistent political and corporate agendas (green-washing). Feasible pursuit of sustainability requires other than propaganda...
The usual scare and persuade (and mandate) strategy did not convince the majority of Swiss voters, who rejected by referendum a national law to curb greenhouse gases. A reality check is needed not only on the scaring forecasts modelled by some acolytes, but also on the feasibility of alternative options, taking into account the social costs of them and the necessary transition period. Short-term profits may be achieved by tax benefits and subsidies, but long-term sustainability cannot. Technology and economic engineering should lead: the environmental issue is too important to have it managed by paper prophets.
According to this WSJ opinion, "the finance industry’s palpable excitement is electrifying to climate activists and the politicians who cater to them. Wall Street is now squarely on their side. Yet the enthusiasm of asset managers and banks is hardly surprising. Any government mandate that a large amount of capital must be swiftly retired and replaced creates a tremendous opportunity for financiers, no matter the underlying reason. [...] Today, an emerging coalition of governments and environmental activists singularly focused on net zero are empowering a “finance-industrial complex” eager to affirm the activists’ goals—and get rich doing so."
Sustainability Reporting
The European Commission released a proposal which trusts the?EFRAG?to prepare?EU sustainability reporting standards. Contrary to the legislative delegation to the IASB for financial reporting standard-setting, the EU is taking the lead for non-financial reporting standards.
The IFRS Foundation announced an ambitious project to deliver global sustainability disclosure standards for the financial markets. The newly established International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB) will focus on meeting the sustainability information needs of investors for assessing 'enterprise value' and making investment decisions.?
The UN adopted a landmark framework that transforms ‘value’ of nature.
However, the notion of value is ambiguous and leads to think of nature as an economic asset expressed in monetary terms (or market prices), that is eventually, as equivalent to financial assets implying financial returns.
An alternative accounting perspective may build upon the determination of investments and costs which are needed to maintain and protect nature. These investments and costs are under the responsibility of private and public decision-makers who profit from nature and must maintain and protect it.
Time to read and learn about:
The UK FRC just reviewed the IAS 37 on provisions and contingent liabilities, an important accounting issue for corporate sustainability.
This reporting is of particular importance to investors owing to the forward-looking information it can provide about company’s exposures. The issues giving rise to provisions and contingent liabilities are often long-term in nature, such as climate change and other environmental obligations.
Research points to the limits of international accounting for this provisioning, in view to better inform investors and protect the environment:
UK Government launched a consultation on wide-ranging reforms to modernise the country’s audit and corporate governance regime.
Proposals include improving rules and disclosures on distributions to shareholders and mitigation of short and long-term risks, encouraging directors to focus on the long-term success of the company.
Time to read and learn about:
领英推荐
WHAT ABOUT IT?
Energy Markets
Decades of market-based regulation left key network industries such as energy exposed to poor management and ill-advised policies, raising prices for customers, reducing security, favoring speculative price swings, and reducing critical investments in infrastructure... Years ago it happened in California, now it has just happened in Texas. US lessons to be learned by the EU regulation and its 'common market' ideal: firms and industries are not markets...
And an energy crisis is ongoing in Europe this winter 2021
The 'law' of offer and demand is not a natural 'law' (like gravity), but an artificial one. It depends on the overarching regulatory design and related policies. EU has been astraying energy into a market solution, while Member States used to manage production and delivery of energy by non-market arrangements, in view to protect consumers from offer and demand hazardous moves, and to assure its secure and fair distribution through time and circumstances. Case studies from California and Texas provide striking illustrative examples of serious concerns raised by market solutions, whose consequences are becoming apparent in EU energy prices these days.
Especially in a time of an ambitious energy transition seeking for a new energy production mix, it is time to remember that production and the business firm are not markets:
Public Health Policy
“You must be vaccinated for good, or you will die and kill. If you do not, I will push your life to a dead end by locking you down."
This 'double bind' dilemma (in Gregory Bateson's words) lays at the core of panic propaganda and forced vaccination campaigns, fraught by conflicts of interest and political agendas.
When you hear abusive big brothers and authoritarian leaders arguing for this imaginary dilemma, free your mind by thinking about neglected alternatives:
This is positive thinking for a truly brand new year...
Pandemic Preparedness and Containment Measures
Contrary to the viral spread, the scare and persuade (and mandate) strategy - which has been in place to manage the?covid-19 pandemic since March 2020 - did not come out of thin air.
According to this Paul Schreyer's documentary, the "war on viruses" began back in the 1990s as the "war on bioterror." It shows that, for more than twenty years since then, pandemic scenarios have been repeatedly rehearsed in simulation exercises, first in the U.S., later coordinated internationally. The titles of these exercises are reminiscent of Hollywood productions: "Dark Winter" (2001), "Global Mercury" (2003), "Atlantic Storm" (2005) or "Clade X" (2018). High-ranking government representatives as well as well-known journalists were involved, most recently, at "Event 201" in October 2019, also board members of large global corporations.
After the World Health Organization (WHO) declared a coronavirus pandemic in 2020, many of the measures that had been rehearsed and discussed for years - including restrictions of fundamental rights and forced vaccination for all - were implemented globally.
Vaccine Adverse Events
The Australia's Government is developing a claims scheme to reimburse people who suffer a moderate to significant impact following an adverse reaction to an approved COVID-19 vaccine.
In Taiwan, "one billion baht in financial compensation has been provided by the Taiwan's National Security Office (NHSO) to people who experienced negative effects after receiving Covid-19 vaccinations."
"The NHSO has provided compensation of up to 100,000 baht to 7,037 people who experienced mild side effects. 250 people have received payouts of 100,000-240,000 baht for severe conditions that could have been caused by vaccination such as losing functions of their limbs which affected their daily lives. Compensation of 400,000 baht were provided to 2,264 families of the deceased patients or people permanently disabled that could have been attributed to the side effects of the inoculation."
One Taiwan baht is currently exchanged against 0.027?Euro.
Elsewhere, authoritarian public health authorities enact forced vaccination for all, including vaccination passports. Therefore, they should be accountable and then responsible for incurred adverse events.
US Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS):?
EU database of suspected adverse drug reaction reports:?
Pandemic Management by Numbers
"While visual depictions of epidemics have existed for centuries,?covid-19 is the first one in which real time dashboards have saturated and structured the public’s experience."
"Pandemic dashboards provide endless fuel, ensuring the constant newsworthiness of the covid-19 pandemic, even when the threat is low. In doing so, they might prolong the pandemic by curtailing a sense of closure or a return to pre-pandemic life."
"Deactivating or disconnecting ourselves from the dashboards may be the single most powerful action towards ending the pandemic. This is not burying one’s head in the sand. Rather, it is recognising that no single or joint set of dashboard metrics can tell us when the pandemic is over", write David Robertson and Peter Doshi on the BMJ
How misleading numbers drive unhealthy public policies:?