Mark Burton

Students, graduates, friends and family: here's a chance to tell the government what you think about their unfair plans for student loan repayments 👇

Let's see if we can force another U-turn...

Call for articles: Degrowth and Ecosocialism: the global picture Degrowth UK plans to run a series of articles as a stock-take of degrowth and ecosocialism worldwide. We envisage two types of contribution. 1) Short pieces (up to 2,000 words) summarising the situ…

We are seeking more contributions to the series, both country/regional or thematic focussed. Here's the call.
degrowthuk.org/2026/01/21/c...

#degrowth

The EU’s Retreat on Corporate Accountability # The EU’s Retreat on Corporate Accountability: ### Growth, Imperial Extraction, and the Limits of Regulation _by_ Alice Puerto* In the series Degrowth and Ecosocialism: the global picture In 2025, the European Union took what may prove to be a historic step backward. Under pressure from a consolidated right–far-right bloc in the European Parliament, led by the European People’s Party and allied with nationalist forces, the Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CS3D) was significantly weakened. What had been presented as a breakthrough for human rights and environmental protection has been narrowed, delayed, and diluted in the name of “competitiveness.” This retreat is not simply a technical adjustment to regulatory scope. It is a revealing moment in the political economy of Europe. It shows the structural incompatibility between a growth-dependent economic model and meaningful limits on corporate power. More fundamentally, it exposes how the prosperity of the Global North remains bound to extractive relations with the Global South, relations that degrowth and ecosocialist thinkers have long identified as forms of ecological imperialism. ## From Rana Plaza to Rollback The original rationale for EU-wide due diligence legislation was clear. After the 2013 collapse of the Rana Plaza factory in Bangladesh, which killed 1,138 garment workers, producing for global brands public outrage forced European policymakers to confront the violence embedded in global supply chains (Reuters, “EU strikes deal to further weaken corporate sustainability laws”, 9 December 2025). As political economist John Smith (2014) argues, the disaster functioned as a kind of “x-ray” of the global economy, revealing structural features that usually remain hidden from view. The collapse exposed how the production of cheap consumer goods for Western markets relies on extremely low wages and unsafe working conditions in export-oriented manufacturing zones. In this sense, the tragedy was not simply an industrial accident but a manifestation of the global system of labour arbitrage that underpins contemporary capitalism. Smith argues that the relocation of manufacturing to low-wage countries has become central to the accumulation strategies of multinational corporations. These wage differentials allow corporations to capture value generated by workers in the Global South while profits are beneficial and concentrated in the Global North. The promise of due diligence was straightforward: corporations would be legally responsible not only for their own operations but for harms occurring throughout their value chains (European Commission, 2023). Under the weakened version adopted in 2025 (European Council press release on the simplification of sustainability reporting and due diligence requirements, 2025), this principle has been hollowed out. Obligations are largely confined to companies’ own operations, subsidiaries, and direct suppliers. Indirect suppliers, where forced labour, land grabs, toxic dumping, and violent repression most often occur, are effectively placed beyond scrutiny. Thresholds have been raised, drastically reducing the number of companies covered. This narrowing of scope is decisive. A Cornell University modelling of European supply chains has shown that while a small minority of companies face forced or child labour risks among direct suppliers, the overwhelming majority face such risks in second- and third-tier suppliers. In other words, abuses are concentrated precisely in the upstream segments that the revised directive now sidesteps. The political message is unmistakable: Europe is unwilling to look where its prosperity is actually made possible. ## Growth as Structural Constraint To understand this rollback, we must move beyond parliamentary arithmetic. The alliance between conservative and nationalist forces is not an anomaly; it reflects the deeper logic of a system organised around economic growth. The European economy remains dependent on continuous material expansion. Despite rhetoric about “green growth,” Europe’s resource consumption relies heavily on imported fossil fuels, minerals, agricultural commodities, and manufactured goods. The apparent decoupling of GDP from emissions within Europe is achieved, in part, by outsourcing energy-intensive production and environmental destruction elsewhere. A robust due diligence regime, one that truly covered entire supply chains, would expose this dependence. It would reveal that cheap consumer goods, renewable technologies, and infrastructure projects are built upon land dispossession, precarious labour, and ecological degradation in the Global South. To regulate supply chains seriously would mean confronting the material basis of European living standards. This is where degrowth analysis becomes essential. Degrowth is not merely a call for voluntary simplicity or lifestyle change. It is a structural critique of an economic system that requires perpetual expansion. Degrowth itself is the subject of ongoing debate, both in academic literature and within activist networks such as Degrowth UK. The main debate concerns whether it should be understood as a research programme, a political project, or a broader social movement. Scholars such as Kallis, Demaria, and D’Alisa (2015) emphasize its role as a scientific and theoretical framework for studying post-growth economies, highlighting how degrowth functions as a research programme and as a vision for socio-economic transformation. In contrast, activist networks like Degrowth UK (2023) focus on its practical and political dimensions, promoting degrowth as a social movement and a political project aiming to challenge the dominance of GDP growth in contemporary societies. In this sense, degrowth simultaneously operates as a research programme, a social movement, and a political vision. The weakening of the CS3D is therefore not accidental; it reflects the deeper incompatibility between growth-dependent economic systems and meaningful forms of social and ecological justice. ## Ecological Unequal Exchange Globalisation did not flatten the world. It reorganised it. Core economies continue to accumulate wealth by appropriating value from peripheral ones through what political economists call unequal exchange. This operates not only through wage differentials but through ecological asymmetries: land, water, minerals, energy, and waste absorption capacity are disproportionately mobilised in the South to sustain consumption in the North. This dynamic is referred to as ecological unequal exchange, a concept emerging from political ecology and ecological economics, and has been extensively analyzed by Jason Hickel on global resource flows and ecological debt. GLOBAL SOUTH: Extraction and Production, Mines, Plantations ,Low-wage labor Infrastructures, Click image for a pdf version. Ecological unequal exchange is measurable. Europe imports vast quantities of embodied labour and embodied emissions through global supply chains. The environmental costs, such as toxic pollution, biodiversity loss, soil degradation, are externalised to regions with weaker regulatory frameworks and less geopolitical leverage. When the EU narrows its due diligence obligations, it effectively entrenches this structure. By refusing to scrutinise second and third-tier suppliers, it shields the upstream sites of extraction and exploitation from meaningful accountability. The burden of proof remains on communities with the least power. The language of “competitiveness” used to justify the rollback is revealing. Competitiveness means maintaining cost advantages. Cost advantages depend on accessing cheap labour and cheap nature. Any regulatory framework that seriously disrupts this logic is framed as a threat to European prosperity. ## The Case of the East African Crude Oil Pipeline The dynamics of ecological imperialism are visible in concrete projects. The East African Crude Oil Pipeline (EACOP), led by TotalEnergies, exemplifies the contradictions at stake. The pipeline, stretching approximately 1,443 kilometres from Uganda to Tanzania, is designed to transport over 200,000 barrels of crude oil per day. It has already displaced tens of thousands of people, disrupted agricultural livelihoods, and threatened sensitive ecosystems, including protected areas and wetlands. The project is projected to generate tens of millions of tonnes of CO₂ annually, emissions that will overwhelmingly benefit consumers and shareholders far from the affected territories. Local resistance has been met with repression. Students and activists mobilising against the pipeline have faced arrests and intimidation. Communities challenging land acquisition processes have encountered legal and administrative obstacles that reflect profound power asymmetries (Human Rights Watch, 2026; The Guardian, 2023). In France, civil society organisations invoked the 2017 duty of vigilance law to challenge TotalEnergies in court. In October 2025, a Paris court ruled that the company had engaged in misleading commercial practices by presenting itself as a major actor in the energy transition while continuing fossil fuel expansion (Climate Integrity, 2025). The ruling marked a rare moment of institutional accountability. Yet such victories remain fragile. A strong EU-wide due diligence directive could have reinforced these national legal tools and extended their reach across supply chains. Instead, the diluted CS3D risks harmonising downward, setting a ceiling rather than a floor for corporate responsibility. By weakening due diligence at the European level, policymakers effectively grant continued legitimacy to projects like EACOP; so long as they are framed as economically strategic. ## Regulation Without Transformation? None of this means that legal tools are irrelevant. On the contrary, they can create leverage, expose abuses, and shift public discourse. But regulation within a growth-dependent system faces structural limits. As long as European prosperity is tied to high material throughput, externalised environmental costs, and profit-maximising corporate structures, due diligence will remain contested and reversible. Each economic downturn or geopolitical crisis will generate renewed calls to suspend or weaken social and environmental standards in the name of stability. Degrowth and ecosocialism challenge this cycle at its root. They argue that justice requires planned reduction of material and energy use in the Global North, democratic control over production, and reparative redistribution between North and South. This implies shortening supply chains, reducing unnecessary production, prioritising care and public goods over accumulation, and confronting imperial trade relations. Without such transformation, due diligence risks becoming a technical fix applied to a structurally extractive system. ## A Political Crossroads The EU could have used the CS3D to signal a break with corporate impunity and ecological imperialism. Instead, it chose to protect competitiveness. This choice reflects not only the rise of right-wing forces but the deeper hegemony of growth as an unquestioned objective. The question is therefore not simply when corporations will be held accountable. It is whether European societies are willing to reconsider the material foundations of their wealth. If growth requires sacrifice zones, then justice requires contraction, at least in the economies that have benefited most from centuries of extraction. Degrowth is not a utopian add-on to regulatory reform. It is the political horizon that makes genuine accountability conceivable. Until Europe confronts its dependence on unequal exchange, each regulatory advance will remain vulnerable to rollback. The weakening of corporate due diligence is not an aberration. It is a reminder that without systemic transformation, the protection of people and ecosystems will always come second to the protection of accumulation. _____________________________________________ *Alice Puerto is currently a student in the Master’s in Degrowth at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB). Prior to joining this specialised programme, she studied economics in preparatory classes in France before continuing her studies at Emlyon Business School. Her academic interests focus on the political economy of degrowth, with particular attention to feminist perspectives. She is currently writing her thesis on feminist approaches to degrowth, exploring the connections between capitalism, global extraction, and gendered forms of inequality. ### Share this: * Share on Mastodon (Opens in new window) Mastodon * Share on X (Opens in new window) X * Share on Facebook (Opens in new window) Facebook * Email a link to a friend (Opens in new window) Email * Print (Opens in new window) Print * Share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window) LinkedIn * Like Loading... ### _Related_

Really pleased to publish this article.
The first in our new series, "Degrowth and Ecosocialism: the global picture".

The EU’s Retreat on Corporate Accountability – degrowthUK
https://degrowthuk.org/2026/03/11/the-eus-retreat-on-corporate-accountability/

International Energy Agency:
"Greatest supply disruption in the history of oil."

It's a foretaste of the future energy-constrained future. So now's a good time to plan

But that's not being admitted in mainstream discussions.

#PeakOil #Hormuz #collapse
#degrowth

The 1996 Helms–Burton Act locked the 🇺🇸 blockade into law & threatens companies that trade with the island.
For 20+yrs presidents suspended Title III – but Trump activated it in 2019, allowing lawsuits against foreign firms and escalating economic warfare on 🇨🇺
#handsoffcuba

The EU’s Retreat on Corporate Accountability

The EU’s Retreat on Corporate Accountability: Growth, Imperial Extraction, and the Limits of Regulation by Alice Puerto* In the series Degrowth and Ecosocialism: the global picture In 2025, the European Union took what may prove to be a historic step…

Streeting’s NHS plan: the deadliest corporate cuckoo yet placed in the health service THE publication of Wes Streeting’s 10 Year Plan for Health in England removes any doubts that Health Secretary is dead-set to hammer the final nails into the coffin of the NHS.Rather than support a service geared to meeting the clinical needs of the population, the NHS is to be repurposed to serve the interests of private healthcare companies, big tech and financiers.

Streeting’s NHS plan: the deadliest corporate cuckoo yet placed in the health service | Morning Star
https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/streetings-nhs-plan-deadliest-corporate-cuckoo-yet-placed-health-service

#NHS #privatisation #UKLabour #UKPol

5/ And on the Strait of Hormuz, they had NO PLAN. I can't go into more detail about how Iran gums up the Strait, but suffice it say, right now, they don't know how to get it safely back open.

Which is unforgiveable, because this part of the disaster was 100% foreseeable.

4/ Ok, so what ARE the goals? It seems, primarily, destroying lots of missiles and boats and drone factories.

But the question that stumped them: what happens when you stop bombing and they restart production?

They hinted at more bombing. Which is, of course, endless war.

3/ Second, they confirmed "regime change" is also NOT on the list. So, they are going to spend hundreds of billions of your taxpayer dollars, get a whole bunch of Americans killed, and a hardline regime - probably a MORE anti-American hardline regime - will still be in charge.

2/ Maybe the lead is that the war goals DO NOT involve destroying Iran's nuclear weapons program. This is, uh...surprising...since Trump says over and over this is a key goal.

But then of course we already know air strikes can't wipe out their nuclear material.

I was in a 2 hour briefing today on the Iran War. All the briefings are closed, because Trump can't defend this war in public.

I obviously can't disclose classified info, but you deserve to know how incoherent and incomplete these war plans are.

1/ Here's what I can share:

Excellent piece from Friends of Carrington Moss.

Trafford is making us sick – but do they care???
https://friendsofcarringtonmoss.com/2026/03/08/trafford-is-making-us-sick-but-do-they-care/

#AirPollution #Trafford

Heresa bit of context for the abandonment of local carbon budgets. A what now piece from Tyndall.
https://pure.manchester.ac.uk/ws/portalfiles/portal/1563216651/Local_Authority_Climate_Action_Beyond_Carbon_Budgets.pdf

Andy Burnham made a number of statements, and they are worth noting and dissecting.
There are things to applaud but the tendency in a speech like this is to paint an overly celebratory picture, and to elide some of the real issues.

#decarbonisation #AirPollution #Waste #GreenSpace #Burnham […]

Andy Burnham’s Green Summit (2026)

Mark Burton Some 2,500 people attended Mayor Andy Burnham’s Greater Manchester Green Summit on Tuesday 3 March. The Mayor’s address Burnham, fresh from the controversy over the Gorton and Denton by-election controversy, and something of a national political…

Andy Burnham’s Green Summit (2026)

Mark Burton Some 2,500 people attended Mayor Andy Burnham’s Greater Manchester Green Summit on Tuesday 3 March. The Mayor’s address Burnham, fresh from the controversy over the Gorton and Denton by-election controversy, and something of a national political…

Iranian Light crude, with its 33-36° API gravity, 1.36-1.5% sulfur content, yields gasoline & diesel with minimal processing—unlike heavier Venezuelan Merey (16° API) or lighter US WTI (39-40° API)

This is OK but not a mention of why it's a GREEN party.
Not a mention of ecological overshoot, nor even of the climate crisis.
I find it depressing this repeated missed opportunity.

I predict a Green wave in the local elections. Anyone who thinks our byelection win was an outlier is mistaken | […]

Yes we can no we didn’t Those who cannot learn from past failures are condemned to repeat them (apologies to Santayana)

I've been fortunate enough to meet many formidably smart, fully committed, & thoroughly decent people who, for years, have strived to try to avert dangerous climate change.

They failed.

Saying that does not lessen my gratitude to them, 1/11

www.technosphere.earth/yes-we-can-n...

War on Iran and the metabolic rift. Another argument for agroecology rather than high (fossil fuel) input industrial agriculture. Of course such a transition can't be done overnight.

How the Iran war could create a ‘fertiliser shock’ – an often ignored global risk to food prices and farming […]

Quite right. Close overseas bases.

"Chants of “British bases out” have rung out in recent days in Limassol, as protesters call for the removal of UK military bases from Cyprus’s sun-drenched south coast island.
"Demonstrations erupted after a suspected Iranian-made drone struck RAF Akrotiri […]

The US decision to block oil shipments to Cuba is threatening to turn its chronic fragility into a full-blown humanitarian collapse writes Yery M. García from TAI Collaborative on @newhumanitarian.bsky.social
buff.ly/19fAK5R

Crackdowns on peaceful protest
Support for Conservative benefit cuts
Blaming migrants for failing public services

As Labour keeps moving right. The question is: How low do they want to go?

Demand a Better Plan for a Greater Manchester! Transport for Greater Manchester (TFGM) is currently consulting on the future of transport in the city region. Their Vision includes fine words about making Greater Manchester’s transport system inclusive and affordable, environmentally responsible, safe and secure, healthy and well-maintained. Yet the proposed targets and delivery plan fall well short of this Vision. As groups in Greater Manchester with interests in health, the environment, safer roads and better transport, we are calling on Greater Manchester’s leaders to set more ambitious targets. We want them to increase the proportion of trips that people make using clean and healthy transport (e.g. walking, wheeling or cycling, public, shared or community transport). These need to be safe, convenient, affordable and accessible to all, so that fewer people feel their only option is to drive. Please respond to the consultation by 9th March. Just put your name, address and email in the ‘Take Action’ panel, then click the ‘Start Writing’ button to send a response. You can edit the suggested text as you see fit. When you’re ready, hit ‘Send Letter’. The whole process should take less than a minute. Thanks for telling TfGM we need a Better Plan for a Greater Manchester!

You've til Monday to demand a better transport plan for Greater Manchester. We need more than a 8% reduction in motor traffic!!
https://actionnetwork.org/letters/demand-a-better-plan-for-a-greater-manchester?source=direct_link&
#GreaterManchester #transport

"No vamos a ser cómplices de algo que es malo para el mundo simplemente por el miedo a las represalias de algunos.”

''We won't be complicit with something that is bad for the world simply for fear of reprisals from some quarters."

Pedro Sánchez le aguanta el pulso a Donald Trump con la guerra […]

That's one hell of an 'exclusion zone'. And also only the 2nd time a submarine has sunk a surface vessel since WWII. The 1st being... 1982 sinking of Argentinian General Belgrano by HMS Conqueror with the loss of 323 sailors. I wonder how many perished in this attack?

This will be Trump's Belgrano.

U.S. submarine torpedoes Iranian ship in Indian Ocean, reportedly killing at least 87 sailors | CBC News
https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/indian-ocean-us-iran-ship-torpedo-9.7113910

Starmer speaks to Trump after UK joins defensive operation in Middle East Sir Keir Starmer says protections for British bases and personnel have been stepped up to their highest level.

Use of the word 'defensive' here is utterly abhorrent. This is why Starmer is detested and BBC 'journalism' is derided by everyone outside the Establishment bubble. This is an illegal war and Israel, the U.S. and U.K. are the aggressors. 🇮🇷
www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...