Going around in circles? Conceptual recycling, patching and policy layering in the EU Circular Economy Package

This is the final version. Available on open access from Taylor & Francis via the DOI in this recordThe circular economy (CE) concept is informing the governance of resource use and waste management on a global scale, leading to widespread policy instrument innovation. However, the recent appearance of CE ‘policy portfolios’ raises questions about whether such policies are genuinely path-breaking or are merely adjustments to existing arrangements. Tracing the emergence of the European Union’s Circular Economy Package shows that, while some measures are genuinely novel, many others are ‘patched’ onto pre-existing instruments and that the overall portfolio exhibits a high degree of institutional ‘layering’. Given the evidence of relative ineffectiveness of past incremental environmental interventions, there is a mismatch between such approaches and the scale, pace and scope of transformation implied by contemporary articulations of the circular economy concept. Creating the policy conditions for sustainable production and consumption may require more radical policy formulations than CE proponents acknowledge

QUELLO CHE CONTA. A SOCIO-LEGAL ANALYSIS OF ACCOUNTING FOR SUSTAINABLE COMPANIES

During more than three decades, corporate non-financial and sustainability reporting has been widely conceived as a voluntary practice, a matter of going beyond the requirements of the law. Therefore, it has been traditionally overlooked by legal and socio-legal scholars. However, during the last decade things have rapidly changed. We are currently witnessing the emergence of a mix of mandatory and voluntary regulatory approaches to Corporate Sustainability Accounting (CSA) and the integration of some elements of non-financial reporting into accounting standards. What explains these changes in CSA regulation within the EU arena, at different levels of regulation and through varying modes of governance? More specifically, which political and socio-economic actors are driving the current emergence of CSA regulation? What are their interests? How are these different actors organizing and mobilizing themselves? How and why they succeeded in creating regulatory changes? This research has been based on three main sources of data: documents analysis; literature review; in-depth \ue9lite interviews (26). It has also been strengthened by a participant observation of five months at the EU Commission, collaborating to the legal drafting and Impact Assessment of the new EU directive on non-financial reporting. The criteria for designing the fieldwork have been based on the idea of mapping the position of six groups of actors interested in shaping the emergence of CSA regulation. The groups of actors considered are: managers of large corporations; organized labour; civil society and NGOs; institutional investors; public authorities; and professional experts (accountants; financial analysts; lawyers). The analytical framework deployed by this study is a Bourdieusian reflexive socio-legal approach (see Madsen and Dezalay 2002; Madsen 2011), used as an over-arching research strategy in conjunction with the existing literature (see Gourevitch and Shinn 2005; Graz 2006; Crouch 2011; Streeck 2011). The study claims that the struggles for regulating CSA should be seen as a lens for analyzing broader changes in the field of European corporate governance regulation and in the relation between business and society. A main finding of the Doctoral Thesis, something that has been argued for throughout the study, is that the accounting field has developed a historically specific relation of structural homology with the economic field. Therefore, Chapter 3 argues that the emergence of \u2018social accounting\u2019 regulation, in the 1970s, mirrored contemporaneous debates about \u2018industrial democracy\u2019. Similarly, the \u2018financialisation\u2019 of the 1990s and 2000s has mirrored the structuration of accounting standards narrowly focused only on financial information. Today, the emergence of \u2018sustainability accounting\u2019 regulation in Europe reflects and constructs the political attempt to build a regime of capital accumulation aimed at creating longer-term and \u2018sustainable\u2019 growth. More specifically, drawing on interviews with key informants and documents analysis, the study argues that financial turbulences and corporate scandals at the beginning of the 2000s fostered the inception of a European \u2018transparency coalition\u2019 (see Gourevitch and Shinn 2005) led by investors and including NGOs and part of the trade unions, which drove a series of reforms in the areas of corporate governance and corporate responsibility. The 2008 financial crisis worked as a catalyst for strengthening this regulatory trend and for fostering a stronger role of the state in its regulatory role. Therefore, we are also witnessing the integration of corporate sustainability in company law and corporate governance regulation and the convergence of financial and non-financial aspects in the regulation of corporate reporting. However, it is too early to say whether this coalition will overcome the opposition of managers, who favour a voluntary approach and are lobbying against mandatory non-financial reporting. The study also questions the potential of the \u2018transparency coalition\u2019 to build a new regime of governance of the economy, not just corporate governance. The dissertation consists of six chapters. Chapter 1 introduces objectives, questions and key concepts. It contains a preliminary conceptualization of the field of research and the research questions. Chapter 2 has been focused on the critical review of the literature and of existing explanations of the emergence of CSA regulation. Furthermore, it presents the socio-legal reflexive methodological and epistemological approach that has been adopted to explain the emergence of this new multi-level regulatory framework. In Chapter 3, the reader can find a summary of the long-term development of non-financial reporting during over four decades, starting from the 1970s\u2019 (see also Annex I). Chapters 4 and 5 narrow down the empirical research, focusing on a more limited periodisation (mid-1990s to 2011) and on the case study of the struggles for shaping an EU-level regulatory framework for non-financial reporting. The aim of Chapter 4 and 5 has been to empirically strengthen the broader analysis outlined in Chapter 3, on the basis of the data collected during the fieldwork. Chapter 6 concludes summarising the key arguments and offering some reflections on future researches

Torn between legal claiming and privatized remedy: rights mobilization against gold mining in Chile

This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from Cambridge University Press via the DOI in this recordMany academic authors, policymakers, NGOs and corporations have focused on top-down human rights global norm-making, such as the United Nations Guiding Principles for Business and Human Rights (UNGPs). What is often missing are contextual and substantive analyses that interrogate rights mobilization and linkages between voluntary transnational rules and domestic governance. Deploying a socio-legal approach and using a combination of longitudinal field and archival data, this article investigates how a local, indigenous community in Northern Chile mobilized their rights over a period of almost two decades. We found that rights mobilization was largely shaped by tensions between the different logics of legality and the business organization. In our case, the UNGP implementation process has been ineffective in giving rightsholders access to genuine remedy. On the contrary, it has led to weakened rights mobilization, dividing the local community. We conclude that greater attention to rights mobilization and domestic governance dynamics should be given in the Business and Human Rights debate.European Union Horizon 202

Virtuous circles: Transformative impact and challenges of the social and solidarity circular economy

This is the final version. Available on open access from Wiley via the DOI in this recordThe conventional view tends to consider the social dimension of the circular economy as conspicuous by its absence. This paper draws attention to business strategies and organisational practices that bring together the valorisation of wasted material resources and marginalised people. Theoretically, we build on the literature on hybrid forms of organisation and management typical of the social and solidarity economy (SSE)—for example, social cooperatives—to introduce a more realistic and dynamic model of social and solidarity circular economy (SSCE). Offering a definition of SSCE based on existing hybrid organisational practices rather than abstract ideals, we juxtapose the SSCE and the current corporate-led CE approach across three key dimensions: strategic aims; organisational boundaries and governance mechanisms. To illustrate how this SSCE works, we focus on the case of CAUTO, an Italian network of circular social cooperatives based in Northern Italy. We identify three intertwined steps through which CAUTO developed an effective SSCE strategy: social circular innovation, networked actions and participatory scaling up. Taken together, our findings suggest a realistic pathway to business circularity that is inclusive, pragmatic and embedded in social practices

All around the world: assessing optimality in comparative circular economy policy packages

This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available on open access from Elsevier via the DOI in this recordThe recent global diffusion of circular economy regulatory policy packages (CERPPs) raises questions over their extent, composition and, critically, potential effectiveness. While research into circular economy (CE) regulation is growing, a dearth of analyses of the optimal design of CE policy packages presents a clear gap in the literature. This paper therefore surveys current waste management policy to identify the degree to which circular economy practices are being translated into public policy globally. Examining resource use and waste management policy in 60 countries, the paper first provides a snapshot of the global spread of CE policy packages. Secondly, the assessment framework is applied to three case studies of recent CE policy packages from Finland, Greece and South Korea. These cases fall some way short of theoretical optimality, suggesting that long-term CERPP effectiveness is questionable.Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC)Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC

The collaborative and contested interplay between business and civil society in circular economy transitions

Copyright © 2022 The Authors. We know from the corporate social responsibility (CSR) literature that civil society organizations (CSOs) play a crucial role in helping businesses transition towards more responsible and sustainable business models. Yet, in the circular economy (CE) field, such understanding is still scarce. This article develops a theoretical framework for understanding the dynamic interplay between business and civil society in CE transitions, understanding their mechanisms and strategies for cooperation and contestation. We develop the concept of ‘CE boundary work’ to understand how CSOs interact with firms to bring about CE innovation, outlining three ideal types: campaign based, resource efficiency based and circular design based. This contributes to our understanding of how CE transitions can be brought about effectively through cross-sectoral interplays between civil society and business

The Milan Food Policy: Six lessons for local food strategies

This is the final version.Milan is acknowledged worldwide for its significant commitment to developing a more inclusive and sustainable urban food policy. In 2021, the Italian city won the prestigious Earthshot Prize in the category ‘build a waste-free world’ for being “the first major city to enforce a city-wide food waste policy encompassing public agencies, food banks, charities, NGOs, universities, and private businesses” (2). Milan established its Food Policy in 2015, creating a dedicated Milan Food Policy Office that has been pivotal during the Covid-19 emergency and beyond to reduce food waste and ensure access to healthier diets to hundreds of vulnerable households. Through a mix of interviews and archival data, this research outlines six useful lessons for public authorities in the UK

The Regulatory Dynamics of Sustainable Finance: Paradoxical Success and Limitations of EU Reforms

This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from Springer via the DOI in this recordThe financial sector has seen a transformation towards ‘sustainable’ finance particularly in Europe, driven also by unprecedented regulatory reforms. At the same time, many are sceptical about the real impact of these reforms, fearing that they are triggering a paradoxical financialisation of sustainability. Building on recent research on institutional logics and institutional fields formation, we examine changes in the EU regulatory dynamics as characterised by shifts in framing the relationship between sustainability and finance. Deploying a longitudinal approach (2009–2019), consisting of archival data and semi-structured interviews, we explore the development of EU sustainable finance regulation as an extended, interactive and contested process. Specifically, we suggest that regulatory dynamics depend on the hybrid configuration of the social constituencies supporting sustainable finance reforms and on shifts in the overall prevalence of the financial logic in society. Our paper sheds light on the inherent contradictions and limitations of sustainable finance as a means for transformative sustainability reforms.European Union Horizon 202