Many companies are talking about so-called corporate social responsibility. But when it comes down to it, they just don't deliver, writes Professor of Banking and Finance Dirk Schoenmaker of Rotterdam School of Management in newspaper FD. Recent examples are the absence of a large part of the agro-industry and the supermarket sector from the ‘nitrogen talks’, and the role of the energy industry in the soaring energy prices. The well-known ‘polder model’ can offer a solution.
"Negotiator Johan Remkes recently scolded the supermarkets, and rightly so. If there are problems for the companies themselves, as in the case of the banking crisis or the coronapandemic, the business community will be at the government's doorstep to hold up their hands. Wouter Bos, who was Minister of Finance from 2007 to 2010 (during the banking crisis), aptly named this: privatise profits and socialise losses. This statement caused much chagrin among the banks. Eventually, the government imposed a bank tax to enforce solidarity with the treasury. Exactly the same thing is happening now with the energy companies," he writes in the opinion piece.
Energy and nitrogen tax for large companies
Schoenmaker suggests the idea of an energy tax. The threat of such a tax has already caused utility companies in the United Kingdom to use schemes to pass on discounts on the world market price to consumers. Something similar is happening in the nitrogen crisis, in which banks and agribusinesses should deliver a contribution, which have driven the intensification of agriculture with major environmental consequences in the form of excessive emissions of nitrogen, phosphate and methane gases.
The solution already lies in the polder model
"There are already political parties that want to hold the financing banks responsible. A nitrogen tax on agricultural banks and agribusinesses is then the obvious solution. It is unfortunate that we are in this model of non-social enterprise, where the private interests of shareholders are decisive. In this model, the ball is completely in the government's court: bail out in bad times, and tax companies extra in good times," says Schoenmaker.
What is the alternative? "That companies do take their social responsibility seriously and discuss solutions with the government, with everyone doing their bit: our internationally renowned ‘polder model’ that can lead to superior solutions.”
Read the article on FD.nl (in Dutch).
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