Sustainability accounting and reporting: an ablative reflexive thematic analysis of climate crisis, conservative or radical reform paradigms

Every year the global financial system sends trillions of dollars to finance environmental destruction, but the climate crisis forces change. Notwithstanding vested interests and the unrecognised paradox of adopting environmental business strategies, the implementation of sustainability accounting and reporting (SAR) is imperative to catalyse economic transition away from fossil-fuel and plastic configurations to more sustainable ones. The research proceeded sequentially. First, it scanned the backdrop to the SAR problem and identified key associated institutions and a corpus of recent literature. An initial review to disentangle its conflicting threads generated three themes of ‘climate crisis’ and ‘conservative’ or more ‘radical’ SAR reform paradigms. Iteratively harnessing this thematic lens, the investigation re-examined the SAR literature corpus. It detected fragmented SAR responses to the climate crisis. Accordingly, the research reformulated its first theme to ‘dystopic climate crisis fragmentation’ but only refined the other two conservative or radical themes to take account of materiality and the split between Anglo-Saxon (IFRS, SSAB) or global and continental institutions (UN, EU, GRI). Conservatives defend incremental standard improvements but retain a single materiality investor-focus. Radicals seek to implement double materiality with a broader spectrum of stakeholders in mind. Both approaches have theoretical as well as pragmatic advantages and disadvantages, so the SAR contention rumbles on. Whilst the standard setting landscape is evolving, division, paradox and contention remain. Given vested interests in the destructive status quo, it would be naïve to expect a harmonious SAR Ithaca to emerge anytime soon. Yet the challenges impel urgent action.

THE HARM CAUSED BY ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE: ASPECTS OF RESPONSIBILITY AND LEGAL PERSONALITY

A rule of law is effective when it adequately reflects objective needs and corresponds to the laws of the development of public relations. However, information technologies are developing faster than the corresponding legislative regulation. Programs equipped with artificial intelligence, once considered science fiction, are being increasingly used in various spheres of life every day. Advanced technologies are designed to significantly facilitate the life of a modern person, allowing him to transfer monotonous and technical tasks to units, i.e. carriers of artificial intelligence. However, the use of AI systems does not always turn out to be absolutely positive and safe – sometimes in practice, due to various factors, damage to property, health and even human life is caused during the operation of the unit. In this regard, legitimate questions arise about legal liability for such consequences, about the suitability of existing legislation to regulate such relations and about the need to improve and specialize legal regulation for new torts. This work is also aimed at participating in this discussion. For the purposes of the article, all negative manifestations of AI are reduced to three situations: causing harm due to flaws in the program or its incorrect operation; using technology by a person to commit an offense; causing harm by an artificial intelligence unit independently and on its own initiative. The paper examines all these cases, offers options for their legal resolution, critically evaluates existing approaches, projects and special legal acts already adopted. The conclusion is made that there is no need for a radical reform of the legal system for artificial intelligence, the theory of its legal personality is denied, it is argued that a person is responsible for all its mistakes – the manufacturer, user, owner, etc. In general, the strategy of the domestic legislator on the development of artificial intelligence is supported, but it is proposed to pay more attention to other ways to improve the security of AI systems (user liability insurance, unified accounting of units, etc.), rather than sanctions against them as "electronic persons".

The Pandemic and Shareholder Value

Shareholder value has driven corporate governance in North America for over a century. In the wake of significant financial crises and growing inequalities, corporate America decided in 2019 to embrace a more egalitarian model, in which all stakeholders matter equally. The brutal pandemic that wreaked havoc in the first half of 2020 exposed a startling disconnect between the real economy and the stock market. This disconnect is due to a gap between explicit and implicit corporate governance. While officially corporate America wants to convert to a new doctrine, the pandemic has shown that shareholder capitalism has remained the default model. Good intentions and official declarations are not enough in a system that has been specifically designed to serve the shareholders. If stakeholder capitalism is to succeed, it needs a clear normative content and perhaps a more radical reform of institutions and regulation.

‘To Me, Socialism Is Not a Set of Dogmas but a Living Principle’: Harry Atkinson and the Christchurch Socialist Church, 1890-1905

<p>In the early 1890s Harry Atkinson, the subject of this thesis, travelled to England and spent a year as foundation secretary of the Manchester and Salford Labour Church. In Manchester Atkinson worked closely with the Churchʼs founder John Trevor, took part in Labour Church services and worked with a variety of British socialist intellectuals and activists including Ben Tillett, Edward Carpenter and Robert Blatchford. Atkinson returned to New Zealand in late 1893 and three years later founded the Socialist Church in Christchurch. This was not a Church in the traditional sense—rather, it was a site for the debate, discussion and dissemination of radical and socialist literature and ideas, and a platform for political agitation and social reform. Its creed was to ‘promot[e] a fellowship amongst those working for the organisation of Society on a basis of Brotherhood and Equality’. Members of the Church included Jack McCullough, James and Elizabeth McCombs and Jim Thorn. The critical, yet downplayed, role that Atkinson played working behind the scenes as an important mentor and conduit in the emergent socialist subculture in Christchurch from 1896 to 1905 has been for the most part unexplored in New Zealand labour historiography. This thesis addresses this imbalance and examines the intellectual and associational activity of Harry Atkinson during the period 1890 to 1905 and reconsiders the work and key concerns of the Christchurch Socialist Church. It argues that the form of ethical socialism Atkinson experienced in Manchester, and later promulgated through the Socialist Church, has been mischaraterised as vague or, inaccurately, Christian Socialist. By situating Atkinson’s beliefs and activities within a wider transnational context of 1890s ‘New Life’ socialism, we can see his ideas and work as part of a broader ‘world of labour’, shaped by multi-directional flows and contacts. The varied networks through which Atkinson was exposed to books and ideas are illustrated and the thesis attempts to trace the diversity of his, and others, associational activity. It suggests that the colonial New Zealand socialism of the 1890s was not ‘without doctrine’, and that individuals engaged in richer intellectual and associational lives than is often acknowledged. However, it is shown that Atkinson and members of the Church, though inspired by foreign or overseas experiences, ideas and literature, focused primarily on local issues. These are also surveyed and include agitation for municipal government, female equality and the radical reform of democratic institutions. It is argued that a reconsideration of the lived experience of Atkinson and his wider circle provides a lens to investigate some important aspects of colonial New Zealand radicalism and socialism, outside the usual foci of trade unions, the workplace and formal labour politics.</p>

‘To Me, Socialism Is Not a Set of Dogmas but a Living Principle’: Harry Atkinson and the Christchurch Socialist Church, 1890-1905

<p>In the early 1890s Harry Atkinson, the subject of this thesis, travelled to England and spent a year as foundation secretary of the Manchester and Salford Labour Church. In Manchester Atkinson worked closely with the Churchʼs founder John Trevor, took part in Labour Church services and worked with a variety of British socialist intellectuals and activists including Ben Tillett, Edward Carpenter and Robert Blatchford. Atkinson returned to New Zealand in late 1893 and three years later founded the Socialist Church in Christchurch. This was not a Church in the traditional sense—rather, it was a site for the debate, discussion and dissemination of radical and socialist literature and ideas, and a platform for political agitation and social reform. Its creed was to ‘promot[e] a fellowship amongst those working for the organisation of Society on a basis of Brotherhood and Equality’. Members of the Church included Jack McCullough, James and Elizabeth McCombs and Jim Thorn. The critical, yet downplayed, role that Atkinson played working behind the scenes as an important mentor and conduit in the emergent socialist subculture in Christchurch from 1896 to 1905 has been for the most part unexplored in New Zealand labour historiography. This thesis addresses this imbalance and examines the intellectual and associational activity of Harry Atkinson during the period 1890 to 1905 and reconsiders the work and key concerns of the Christchurch Socialist Church. It argues that the form of ethical socialism Atkinson experienced in Manchester, and later promulgated through the Socialist Church, has been mischaraterised as vague or, inaccurately, Christian Socialist. By situating Atkinson’s beliefs and activities within a wider transnational context of 1890s ‘New Life’ socialism, we can see his ideas and work as part of a broader ‘world of labour’, shaped by multi-directional flows and contacts. The varied networks through which Atkinson was exposed to books and ideas are illustrated and the thesis attempts to trace the diversity of his, and others, associational activity. It suggests that the colonial New Zealand socialism of the 1890s was not ‘without doctrine’, and that individuals engaged in richer intellectual and associational lives than is often acknowledged. However, it is shown that Atkinson and members of the Church, though inspired by foreign or overseas experiences, ideas and literature, focused primarily on local issues. These are also surveyed and include agitation for municipal government, female equality and the radical reform of democratic institutions. It is argued that a reconsideration of the lived experience of Atkinson and his wider circle provides a lens to investigate some important aspects of colonial New Zealand radicalism and socialism, outside the usual foci of trade unions, the workplace and formal labour politics.</p>

EP.FRI.422 Over 100,000 COVID-19 deaths calls for a radical reform of health and care system in the UK

Aim With over 100,000 deaths due to COVID 19 and still counting, is it a wake-up call to overhaul our health and care system. Methods Review of NHS England, Office of National Statistics (ONS) and Public Health England (PHE) data to determine where the deaths occurred and what role did the primary care, secondary care, play in delivering the service. Results The data shows that it took 40 weeks to get to the first 50,000 deaths and just another 10 weeks to add another 50,000 deaths. Among the OECD UK ranked number 1 for deaths due to COVID 19. 69.9% of deaths occurred in hospitals, 24.1% in care homes, while 4.9% occurred at homes. The primary care effectively remained shut for face to face consultation, effectively leaving people to manage themselves at home on their own or reach A & E when things got worse. The hospitals where overwhelmed and coped by shutting out all elective work and converting normal wards to COVID wards and that is where the maximum deaths occurred. There were over 80000 excess deaths above the five-year average. Conclusion We may have been underprepared for the first wave but had the PPE and plans to battle the second wave yet we had the highest mortality in Europe. Is it a price we paid for our disjointed health and care system. There is a need for radical changes to prepare for future disasters.