Market Economies and Green Ideals

Ecological critics maintain that under-regulated business activity generates environmental degradation, systemic environmental risks, and leads to injustices in access to environmental quality. This project will engage divergent perspectives on the relationship between different models of market economies, regulation and green ideals. It will address the following questions: What is the relationship between business freedom, economic growth, and environmental protection? Can institutions of several property and contract law allow businesses and consumers to address systemic environmental risks such as bio-diversity loss and climate change? Is respect for private property and negative rights compatible with environmental justice? When might Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) schemes promote individual freedom and when might they threaten that freedom? The project will support disciplinary and interdisciplinary research in economics, law, philosophy, politics and their relationship to natural scientific analysis. It will produce scholarly articles and books. It will host a visiting scholars program at KCL to stimulate the engagement of classical liberal perspectives with those favoring non-liberal models of the market economy. It will recruit post-doctoral researchers to build a new generation of scholars engaging market-based and property rights approaches to sustainable development. It will engage visiting scholars and post-docs with business and civil society to generate a wider appreciation of classical liberal responses to practical environmental challenges. It will commission an undergraduate text bringing together ecological critiques of business activity with standpoints sympathetic to institutions of private property, contract, and free commercial exchange. Finally, it will curate a thematic research portal dedicated to the best work that engages classical liberal approaches to business and environmental governance with their strongest critics.