The corporate climate overhaul

Abstract

The rules of the game need to be changed, so that corporations can compete on the basis of innovation, resource conservation and satisfaction of multiple stakeholder demands - rather than on the basis of who is the most effective at influencing government regulation, avoiding taxes and obtaining subsidies for harmful activities in order to optimize shareholder returns. The tax authorities of G20 governments should implement changes in the life-cycle incidence of taxation: more tax should be charged at the point of resource extraction (such as the mining of fossil fuels and minerals) rather than at the point of sale or the point of profit reporting.