Forskning: Kampen for klimaet er blevet et privat anliggende, da staten svigter. På vej mod en markedsbaseret klimaløsning på et politisk svigt: ”The failure of the U.S. political system to adequately address climate change has shifted focus from public to private action. Driven by the Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) movement, investors pressure corporations to adopt climate policies to reduce carbon emissions. Today, many view ESG as a market-based solution to a public policy failure. Where Congress failed, ESG will succeed. In a recent paper, we argue that even if ESG-driven climate stewardship were to achieve the scale necessary to have a real impact on global warming, it would also have a disproportionate impact on low-income households and displaced workers. Curbing global warming is fraught with difficult distributional challenges that corporate ESG measures will neither solve nor circumvent. Interventions to combat climate change are nearly always regressive, with the costs of such policies impacting those with the least, the most. ESG implemented at scale will inevitably replicate the regressive effects of various legislative interventions on which all ESG carbon-reduction strategies are based. But, in contrast with congressional action, ESG solutions will not raise any revenue that could be used to offset ESG regressivity.”
Forskningspapir: Selskabsregler forhindrede et effektivt aktivt ejerskab, der vil indsætte bestyrelsesmedlemmer med mere ESG-fokus: I et forskningspapir hedder det: ”Climate change is an issue of global importance, which may turn out to be the issue of this century. Companies are at the core of both the problems and solutions for climate change. Given this reality, it is astounding that in virtually all jurisdictions in the world “acting in concert rules”, which were designed decades ago to facilitate an efficient market for corporate control, effectively prevent shareholders who hold a majority of shares from democratically replacing boards of brown companies. Our article exposes this overlooked reality by undertaking the first in-depth comparative analysis of acting in concert rules with a focus on their impact on climate-related shareholder activism. It reveals how acting in concert rules, in virtually all jurisdictions around the world, perversely prevent institutional investors from replacing boards that resist (or even deny) climate change solutions – even if (or, ironically, precisely because) they collectively have enough shareholder voting rights to democratically replace the boards of recalcitrant companies.”
Corporate governance i en verden med øget brug af data og teknologi: I et forskningspapir hedder det, at “corporate governance encompasses a set of processes, customs, policies, laws, and institutions that affect the way a corporation is directed, administered, or controlled. Technology both enhances and disrupts the traditional board-centric corporate governance system, offering efficiency gains and transparency improvements while introducing new challenges and risks. This paper presents a comprehensive examination of three key themes: the redefinition of information and information asymmetry through the generation of and access to big data; blockchain’s transformative potential in aggregating preferences and exercising shareholder voting rights while blurring the lines between securities and tokens; and the impact of smart contracts and their underlying infrastructure in expanding contracts and enabling decentralized governance through DAOs. These innovative technological solutions empower stakeholders to exercise governance rights effectively, but their complexity also gives rise to new barriers and inequalities.”
Guardian: Tusindvis af firmaer har udnyttet pandemiens flaskehalse til at øge profitter: Det engelske dagblad skriver: ”Thousands of UK companies have exploited their corporate power to increase profit margins since the pandemic, redistributing wealth from employees to employers and shareholders, according to the biggest study yet of data since 2019. A trawl through the accounts of 17,000 companies by the trade union Unite found pre-tax profit margins were 30% higher on average in 2022 compared with the average across 2018 and 2019. Post-tax margins were on average 20% higher. The findings are likely to further fuel concerns over widespread profiteering during the inflation crisis – triggered by the reopening of economies after pandemic lockdowns and war in Ukraine – with some businesses using the rising cost of living as an opportunity to increase their margins.”
Morten W. Langer
