Why Employee Share Ownership Matters
Webinar
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This webinar accompanies the launch of a new booklet from the Esop (employee share ownership) Centre - “Why Employee Share Ownership Matters”.
Big concepts can be unfairly pigeonholed in small boxes. The concept of employee share ownership ought to start from a moral perspective, not least sharing risks and benefits with fellow economic agents. The benefits attach to a number of levels, from the micro to the macro.
At a micro level, employee share ownership seems fair, encourages cohesion, promotes productivity, and provides financial security. At a macro level, employee share ownership encourages longer-term thinking, promotes national productivity, and aids moves to ‘sustainability’. At an international level, anyone promoting various forms of ‘caring’, ‘compassionate’, or ‘stakeholder’ capitalism or ‘third ways’ should take a long, hard look at providing more fervent support for employee share ownership. And then there is UN Sustainable Development Goal 10 - “Reduced Inequalities”.
Yet too often the employee share ownership pigeonhole becomes ‘tax’. Employee share ownership is a good thing to promote even if you don’t believe that tax is a necessary promotional tool. If you do believe that employee share ownership is deserving of tax advantages, then don’t lose sight of the wider goals.
This booklet attempts to restate the widest case for employee share ownership regardless of national boundaries. It attempts to re-connect the employee share ownership movement with its deeper benefits, connecting open market economies with environmental, social, and governance standards, in turn linked to long-term sustainability goals.
This booklet examines the societal case for Employee Share Ownership (ESO) and sets out its alleged benefits. The booklet attempts to bring readers up-to-date with a movement that is several decades old, and connect the movement with current societal concerns, in particular addressing environmental, social, and governance (ESG) issues, in turn linked to long-term sustainability goals. Finally, the booklet sets out areas for renewed and further research.
The Esop Centre hopes to remind people deep in some thicket of government policies, accounting rules, tax advice, or human relations issues, that their work is part of a big and noble attempt to use that innovative feature of joint-stock companies, the ability to share ownership, for social good.
Read the full report here
Speakers:
Professor Michael Mainelli, FCCA FCSI(Hon) FBCS, Chairman, Z/Yen Group, is a qualified accountant, securities professional, computer specialist, and management consultant, educated at Harvard University and Trinity College Dublin. Michael gained his PhD at the London School of Economics where he was also a Visiting Professor of Innovation & IT. Michael is Emeritus Professor, Fellow, & Trustee at Gresham College where he created the Long Finance initiative asking “when would we know our financial system is working?” His third book, The Price Of Fish: A New Approach To Wicked Economics And Better Decisions, won the Independent Publisher Book Awards Finance, Investment & Economics Gold Prize. Michael is an Alderman and was elected Sheriff of the City of London 2019-2021.
Simon Mills began his career by working as a field botanist on Cloud and Elfin rainforest in Northern Costa Rica. His subsequent career encompassed minerals and highways planning, environmental management systems and sustainable development. In 2000 he became environmental co-ordinator for the City of London, where he established the National Sustainable City Awards and worked on carbon trading, socially responsible investment and climate risk. Following a secondment to Defra in 2010, where he was responsible for establishing the Local and Regional Adaptation Partnership for England, he returned to the City of London as Corporate Policy Manager and Head of Sustainable Development. Since joining as a Z/Yen associate, Simon has worked on mutual distributed ledgers, standards, sustainable business, and policy performance bonds.
Speaker(s):
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Professor Michael Mainelli
Chairman
Z/Yen Group
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Simon Mills
Senior Associate
Z/Yen Group