Switzerland Votes Not to Put Planetary Boundaries in Constitution

But the first vote of its kind was encouraging.

Photo by Sylvain Mauroux on Unsplash

On February 9th voters in Switzerland 70 percent of voters in Switzerland voted “no” on the proposed Environmental Responsibility Initiative that would have put limits on emissions and the consumption of natural resources. The proposed law invoked the planetary boundaries as part of its motivation and would have set a target of 10 years for the Swiss economy to operate within nature’s capacity for renewal.

Opponents of the measure said that if passed the initiative would have harmed the growth of the Swiss economy.

They’re not wrong. But I think they might have missed the point that such “degrowth” might just be a worthwhile goal if it … prevents your society from collapsing.

The initiative was organized by the youth wing of the Green Party in Switzerland, and would have amended the Swiss constitution if it had passed.

It would have been great if the measure had passed, but that it received 30 percent support can be seen as a positive step. The Swiss proposal to amend its constitution to align the countries economic activities with planetary boundaries was the first of its kind and I’m a bit surprised that the “yes” votes were that high at about 30 percent.

To put the environment in the constitution is still radical.

It might not be in the future, but to propose a change to the constitution to make an economy consider the planetary boundaries as the guide for the economy is groundbreaking.

I come from the corporate governance side of the finance world. I won’t bore you with the details, but this Swiss proposal reminds me of the early days of shareholder rights votes about 15 20 years ago when investors were fighting for things like a “say on pay” and “majority voting for directors”. The say on pay vote is largely symbolic, but it allows shareowners to say whether they approve of an executive pay package, which is presented by a company’s board of directors each year. Before “majority voting” for directors became the norm, a director of the board could be elected if they received just one vote. Majority voting means that corporate directors are more responsible to shareholders, and that poor performing directors can more easily be shown the door.

These changes just happened in the past 15 - 20 years in corporations. In the early years when these proposals were filed by shareholders they would only receive support in the single digits of 5 10% of shareholders if they were lucky. But over the years support grew once the large institutional investors (Vanguard, Fidelity, BlackRock, and others) saw that supporting shareholders rights was a good idea. The ideas of say on pay and majority voting for directors had to be normalized in the minds of the investing public, and in a few short years some of these proposals were getting majority support.

Thank you Switzerland, and stick to it.

According to a pollster, citizens worried about jobs and a loss of prosperity, and feared a competitive disadvantage for Swiss companies.

Such sentiment isn’t a surprise. It's the growth bias we see in our politics and our economies, and one we try to debunk when we talk about degrowth and what a post-growth world would look like.

That is why “Degrowth is the answer” exists, to normalize degrowth and post-growth thinking and conversation. So, keep coming back here, and I will keep writing, and keep spreading these ideas.

We are already starting to see funds offered to investors based on planetary boundaries. As more investors, policymakers and citizens learn about the planetary boundaries, expect more votes in the future on running our economies within planetary boundaries. The numbers will only go up.