Fast Company, Inc. Focus on Capitalism Renewal....France Includes Prison Terms in CSRD Laws
Fast Company and Inc. Initiative Explores Future of Capitalism
France Signals Possible Jail Time for Non-Compliance With Sustainability Disclosure Law
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Fast Company and Inc. publisher Stephanie Mehta launches effort to explore stakeholder capitalism...France, the first European country to implement the European Union Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive, includes potential criminal penalties for failure to comply.
Fast Company and Inc. Initiative Explores Future of Capitalism 
“Just four years after the Business Roundtable embraced stakeholder capitalism, some investors and lawmakers have begun to oppose environmental, social, and governance (ESG) initiatives. Our study and our panel aim to understand what versions of capitalism will ultimately emerge. Will a new generation of consumers and leaders demand a ‘kinder, gentler’ form of business and government, or will a more traditional form of capitalism prevail?”
That’s the question Fast Company and Inc. CEO and Chief Content Officer Stephanie Mehta says her media platforms will explore in conjunction with their participation at the upcoming World Economic Forum annual meeting in Davos, where it “will host a series of conversations about the future of capitalism at our newsroom inside the Verizon Innovation Lounge. The discussion will be informed by our own global opinion survey on perceptions of conventional capitalism and the concept of stakeholder capitalism, which posits that corporations have an obligation to employees, customers, suppliers, communities, and investors,” Mehta writes.
Click here to fill out the survey being used to help drive the publisher’s dialog at Davos.
Explaining the initiative, she observes, “At your multigenerational holiday gatherings this week, you may discover wildly varying opinions about the power of free markets. Polls and research consistently show that Gen Z adults are skeptical about capitalism, with a recent Business Insider/YouGov survey showing that 28% of respondents ages 18–26 say they prefer socialism as an economic system, 29% prefer capitalism, and the rest have no opinion or preference. That same study found that 77% of those 78 years old and up preferred capitalism.”
She continues, “Young people tend to hold more liberal views that moderate with age, but some experts feel their distrust for capitalism is not a phase. Many young adults, feeling the pinch of student-loan debt and rising living costs, believe free markets aren’t ever going to work in their favor. Indeed, as New York University professor Scott Galloway writes in a recent post: ‘For the first time in our history, a 30-year-old is not doing as well as his/her parents were at 30. This is a fundamental break and, more disturbing, a function of deliberate decisions, (i.e. social and economic policies that transfer wealth from young to old).’”
What then, she asks, “becomes of capitalism as an economic and political system? It is a topic I’m eager to explore next month at the World Economic Forum annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland. Fast Company will host a series of conversations about the future of capitalism at our newsroom inside the Verizon Innovation Lounge. The discussion will be informed by our own global opinion survey on perceptions of conventional capitalism and the concept of stakeholder capitalism, which posits that corporations have an obligation to employees, customers, suppliers, communities, and investors.”
France Signals Possible Jail Time for Non-Compliance With Sustainability Disclosure Law 
France is the first of the European Union member states to formally approve the European Union Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive, effective Dec. 6, 2023, reports Mary Foley in a recent article. She is a Forbes contributor and Expert Services Strategy Director at Enhesa, a regulatory research firm, where she helps clients “navigate the complex and constantly evolving sustainability and ESG regulatory landscape.”
She suggests that the French approach will help set the tone for the implementation laws of the other member states by introducing “some serious penalties for non-compliance. For example, it appears that fines for various infringements could be up to €75,000 (about $82,000) with the additional threat of five years imprisonment. That should catch the attention of the C-suite, compliance, and legal teams with operations in France. If your company is in scope for this particular piece of legislation, it would be a good use of your time to make sure you fully understand the implications of non-compliance...Corporate sustainability reporting is about to get real,” she emphasizes.
She explains that while the European Union’s CSRD officially took effect on Jan. 1, 2024, for the “EU directive to become operational, it must be incorporated by member states into their own national legislative frameworks. Although passing a directive is a key step in the enforcement process, that directive does not become applicable as a law until it is implemented by each EU country.”
Member states have until July 6, 2024, to implement the law and “don’t expect the member states to go easy on implementation of the law,” she advises.
The largest companies, including many based in the US, will have to begin reporting in 2025 for the 2024 calendar year.
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