Problem Statement:

A safe and happy future for us young people, as well as future generations is at risk. This is due to the fact that present-day economic activities which lead to destruction of nature and global warming are rewarded with excessive profit by today’s market economy. 

 

Besides that, our market economy increases worldwide as well as domestic economic inequalities to dangerous proportions, leading to social tensions and unrest.

These two problems are the result of universal property not being valued by markets, including natural ecosystems, therefore universal property can be limitlessly exploited by corporations without any costs incurred. All the while corporate shareholders reap the profits from these destructive activities

 

Target Group:

1.     EU Citizens, with an emphasis on young people who will suffer most of the devastating consequences of climate change.

2.     EU Corporations responsible for greenhouse gas emissions and other ways of exploitation of universal property.

3.     EU national governments who want to fight global warming but don’t have the means to regulate

 

Proposed Solution:

Our vision is to make Universal Property a third property category (alongside private and public property). This will allow an independent body (representing the EU citizens, future generations and other life on earth which can’t represent themselves) to charge a price for and limit exploitation of natural ecosystems to a healthy degree. This will lead to the following outcomes for three segments:

 

●      The people: By popularizing the Communal Capitalism movement around the effective solution of Universal Property, we want to encourage young people who used to feel powerless to take action by showing them that with Communal Capitalism there actually is a way to adjust capitalism to keep decent prosperity, while preserving our plant and it’s natural ecosystems.

●      EU Corporations widely acknowledge the need for the sustainable transition. They don’t have a clue how to do it without losing their profits and market share. By implementing universal property we make it profitable for corporations to reduce emissions and we will create a level-playing field for all corporations.

●      We are offering government a policy to reach carbon reduction targets which would be popular with the public, in contrast with proposals and policies proposed which only cost tax money and don’t result in income for citizens.

●      Current policies to reduce emissions aren’t effective as proven by the still increasing total amount of emissions.

●      We will need a group of volunteers to support us, we will need influential people to endorse/advise us to give us credibility, and we will need approval of the European Commission to launch the ECI.

 

Hub Activities: 

●      We will organize an event in collaboration with the Erasmus University research group ‘Dynamics of Inclusive Prosperity’ in the second half of May’23

●      We will create documentation: a one-pager describing the proposal, a detailed written proposal, and a slide deck illustrating the proposal. This will be done before the end of April’23

●      We will validate the proposition and adjust it was we learn from interactions with different segments of the public. This will be an ongoing effort.

●      We will create a community by posting content about the proposal and campaign on social media, including video and written content. This will be an ongoing effort.

●      We will hire a board of advisors (5 persons) and get endorsement from a variety of reputable people. This should be done before the end of August and will be started after the event in May.

●      We will hire a country campaign lead in at least 7 EU countries. This should be done before the end of October.

●      We will raise funding for promoting the ECI and to raise more signatures. The fundraising will be ongoing but should be done to a substantial extent before the end of the year.

●      We will submit our proposal to the European Commission and get approval to start an official European Citizens Initiative. This will be done before the end of the year.