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Circular Economy in the Industrial Goods Sector: A Framework for Understanding Private Sector Progress and Innovation
Get PDFA “circular economy” is an economic system that creates a closed loop, allowing for the reuse of resources and minimization of waste. How are circularity principles implemented in the business practices of private companies? “Circular Economy in the Industrial Goods Sector: A Framework for Understanding Private Sector Progress And Innovation” analyzes a diverse cross-section of industrial goods companies and develops a five pillar framework to characterize what good circularity practices look like in practice.
This report was commissioned by Stewart Investors, a long-term investor that looks to drive sustainable development progress through its portfolio. Stewart Investors\u27 approach to stewardship includes engagement with portfolio companies on key issues of mutual interest around sustainability performance. The report provides a framework to assess the circular economy performance of industrial goods companies broadly, and was also used to support a separate assessment of the circular economy performance of several companies across Stewart Investors\u27 portfolio
Implementing the Inflation Reduction Act: Progress to Date and Risks from a Changing Administration
Get PDFThe Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 (“IRA”) is the largest investment in climate change mitigation and adaptation in American history. The IRA appropriates more than 37 billion in appropriations for federal loans and loan guarantees, and nearly 780 billion and $1.2 trillion in tax credits over the IRA’s 10-year life. While the spending and tax credit provisions comprise the bulk of the IRA, the Act also makes important changes to existing federal land leasing programs, mandates updates to existing greenhouse gas reporting regulations, and requires the Environmental Protection Agency (“EPA”) to collect fees for certain methane emissions.
The next Presidential election may jeopardize the IRA’s climate programs. Project 2025, a policy blueprint published by the Heritage Foundation, recommends that the next conservative administration should push for full repeal of the IRA. Perhaps recognizing that could be difficult to achieve, Project 2025 also outlines a suite of measures that a future conservative administration may take to undermine the IRA, should it remain in place. These include measures to redirect climate-related funds and, more broadly, roll back environmental protections. Such proposals threaten to thwart climate action in the United States, and undo hard-won gains in the global fight against climate change.
This paper reviews the status of implementation of the IRA’s climate programs, and evaluates the vulnerability of those to unilateral executive branch action under a hostile presidential administration. For the purposes of our analysis, we assume that Congress will not repeal the IRA in whole or in part, but that a future administration may seek to limit its implementation through executive action. Our aim is to determine the legal vulnerability of IRA programs and identify legal constraints on a future administration’s ability to interfere with the programs’ implementation. We note that other factors, including political factors, may also constrain what a future administration can do, but that is not the focus of this paper
The False Choice Between Digital Regulation and Innovation
Get PDFThis Article challenges the common view that more stringent regulation of the digital economy inevitably compromises innovation and undermines technological progress. This view, vigorously advocated by the tech industry, has shaped the public discourse in the United States, where the country’s thriving tech economy is often associated with a staunch commitment to free markets. U.S. lawmakers have also traditionally embraced this perspective, which explains their hesitancy to regulate the tech industry to date. The European Union has chosen another path, regulating the digital economy with stringent data privacy, antitrust, content moderation, and other digital regulations designed to shape the evolution of the tech economy toward European values around digital rights and fairness. According to the EU’s critics, this far-reaching tech regulation has come at the cost of innovation, explaining the EU’s inability to nurture tech companies and compete with the United States and China in the tech race. However, this Article argues that the association between digital regulation and technological progress is considerably more complex than what the public conversation, U.S. lawmakers, tech companies, and several scholars have suggested to date. For this reason, the existing technological gap between the United States and the EU should not be attributed to the laxity of American laws and the stringency of European digital regulation. Instead, this Article shows there are more foundational features of the American legal and technological ecosystem that have paved the way for U.S. tech companies’ rise to global prominence — features that the EU has not been able to replicate to date. By severing tech regulation from its allegedly adverse effect on innovation, this Article seeks to advance a more productive scholarly conversation on the costs and benefits of digital regulation. It also directs governments deliberating tech policy away from a false choice between regulation and innovation while drawing their attention to a broader set of legal and institutional reforms that are necessary for tech companies to innovate and for digital economies and societies to thrive
Enforcing Legacy Environmental Liabilities for Offshore Oil and Gas Infrastructure
Get PDFFor more than a century, American fossil fuel companies have extended their operations offshore to exploit the vast oil and gas reserves that lie under the seafloor. Since 1953, the Department of the Interior (DOI) has operated a complex system of offshore leasing that allows private oil and gas companies to operate in federal waters. DOI’s leasing regime requires companies to plug wells, remove offshore platforms, and generally return their operation sites to a safe and stable condition when their leases end. This process, known as “decommissioning,” can cost tens or hundreds of millions of dollars for each offshore platform. If offshore oil and gas facilities are not promptly and properly decommissioned, they represent serious ongoing environmental risks—metal rusts, concrete decays, and storms and natural disasters threaten to release oil and natural gas into sensitive ocean environments.
The long life and complex corporate structure of oil and gas assets can complicate the process of enforcing decommissioning obligations. Oil and gas production facilities may operate for many decades, changing hands between multiple owners along the way. However, DOI’s decommission regulations contain a broad set of liability rules that allow regulators to hold prior owners and operators of offshore leases responsible for decommissioning obligations. These rules, known as “joint and several trailing liability,” give regulators the authority to pursue predecessor companies for the costs of decommissioning if the current owner defaults on its obligations.
This white paper examines these legacy decommissioning liabilities. Part I reviews the sources and scope of DOI’s authority to hold predecessor oil and gas companies liable for decommissioning obligations. Part II assesses the impact of these legacy liabilities on the parent companies of predecessor oil and gas operators, and identifies strategies to hold these companies liable for decommissioning obligations if their subsidiaries are unable to pay them. Part III concludes
The International Legal Framework of Oceanic Shipping of Carbon Dioxide for Permanent Storage
Get PDFThe Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change defines carbon dioxide capture and storage (CCS) as “a process in which a relatively pure stream of carbon dioxide (CO2) from industrial and energy-related sources is separated (captured), conditioned, compressed, and transported to a storage location for long-term isolation from the atmosphere.” Therefore, CCS encompasses a series of steps, at minimum: capturing carbon dioxide, its transportation to a storage site, and its injection into the subsurface for permanent storage. As such, CCS does not refer to any single activity or technology. This Article focuses on the transportation aspect of CCS and, more precisely, on the cross-border shipping of carbon dioxide for permanent storage (sequestration) abroad. This Article presents a comprehensive review of the current international legal framework applicable to the transboundary transportation of carbon dioxide.
The issue of cross-border transportation of carbon dioxide for permanent storage is of academic and practical interest, especially when considering the current levels of greenhouse gases (GHGs) in the atmosphere and the need for storing carbon dioxide outside Europe, in particular. There is a vast literature discussing technical aspects of CCS and the experience of sectors and specific countries with CCS. Books and research exclusively dedicated to the international legal framework of oceanic shipping of carbon dioxide for permanent storage are missing
The National Security Exception at the WTO: Should It Just Be a Matter of \u3cem\u3eWhen\u3c/em\u3e Members Can Avail of It? What About \u3cem\u3eHow\u3c/em\u3e?
Get PDFThe GATT security exceptions were practically in hibernation until recently. The recent WTO disputes panel activity concerning such exceptions is characterized by a standard of review that places the accent on ‘when’ action should be taken and not so much on ‘what’ action should be taken. We see two problems with this construction. First, the ‘when’ might be a function of privileged information that those possessing it might be unwilling to divulge in a transparent manner. Second, national security is an amorphous concept, and unless we disaggregate it, it is impossible to pronounce the appropriateness of measures adopted to pursue the underlying objective. In turn, the absence of disaggregation could lead to false positives and negatives, as the same action could be pursuing essential security or providing protection to domestic players
Obscure Contract Terms: An Inadvertent Pricing Experiment
No full textBonds and other tradable securities are issued pursuant to detailed, lengthy contracts that govern investors’ legal rights. These are largely standardized, form contracts, but the fine print can vary. From first principles, it seems that market prices should be sensitive to differences in the underlying contract, at least when those differences impact investors’ legal rights. In markets that tend towards efficiency, the price of a security should incorporate public information about the security and its issuer. For example, if two securities are otherwise identical, but one confers contractual rights that might prove valuable in a default, one would expect investors to assign greater value to the more protective security. One should particularly expect that effect to manifest itself for riskier securities and as default becomes more likely. If this does not happen, it creates an arbitrage opportunity for sophisticated investors, whose trades should move the market towards efficiency
Taking the Lead on Climate Action and Sustainable Development: Recommendations for Strategic National Transition Planning at the Centre of a Whole-of-System Climate Response
Get PDFAs the global economy transitions to a just, low-emissions, climate-resilient, and nature-positive future, we can expect every sector to transform. However, systemic transformation requires strategic transition planning, effective coordination, and communication across the economy. To facilitate this, governments can play a decisive role by managing change and setting incentives and constraints for private actors. Similarly, private sector actors can enhance their corporate strategies and financing decisions to support this transition. Transition plans serve as a roadmap to transformation by outlining a strategic vision and identifying capital needs, external factors, and dependencies.
CCSI is collaborating with experts at CETEx, King’s College, the World Bank, and Aviva Investors to develop the policy case for government-led transition planning as well as a handbook leveraging the framework of the UK’s Transition Planning Taskforce (TPT) to facilitate the integration of transition planning efforts between governments and the real economy. The T20, the “idea bank” of the G20 published the first result of this collaboration.
The latest report in CCSI’s collaboration with CETEx, King’s College, the World Bank, and Aviva Investors advocates for government leadership at the center of a whole-of-system response to the urgent challenges of climate change and sustainable development. The report develops a set of principles-based recommendations for national transition planning by reinterpreting the frameworks of Transition Plan Taskforce (TPT) and Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero (GFANZ) for the national-level context and drawing insights from the Transition Pathway Initiative (TPI). It is accompanied by a handbook of detailed guidance, examples, case studies, and resources. Its publication follows a successful launch event during NY Climate Week
Big Property
Get PDFYun-chien Chang’s Property Law: Comparative, Empirical, and Economic Analysis, is an impressive piece of scholarship. Ten years in the making, Yun-chien has developed the most comprehensive comparative analysis of property law ever undertaken. The effort involved was herculean. He consulted codes in eight different languages and translations into these languages of dozens of others, enlisted the assistance of a small army of research assistants, and solicited the assistance of scholars and lawyers from around the world. The result is nothing less than revelatory. Anyone interested in property law, even if only from the perspective of their own legal system, will have their eyes opened by the book. It is a major achievement by any measure
Addressing Energy Insecurity Upstream: Electric Utility Ratemaking and Rate Design as Levers for Change
Get PDFMillions of Americans are impacted by energy insecurity each year, in part due to unaffordable and inequitable electricity rates. The electric ratemaking process presents opportunities to confront issues of affordability and equity or to instead entrench traditional approaches. State legislatures, public utility commissions (PUCs), and advocates all play vital roles in making the former a reality. Historically, ratemaking has been criticized as an insular and highly technical process that caters to utilities rather than customers. But states like California and New York are making strides by broadening PUC legal authority to include explicit consideration of equity issues, adjusting incentives and values within the rate formula, implementing novel rate designs alongside other low-income customer protections, and instituting measures to make ratemaking a more procedurally just process. Other states should replicate these efforts, and those that have started making progress must continue, as energy insecurity persists