Authors
Professor Michael Mainelli, Simon Mills & Robert Pay
Published by
Long Finance & Esop Centre (May 2025), 36 pages.
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Employees Share Ownership (ESO) contributes to the economy, to social mobility, to levelling up, and to localism. These issues, rather than simply taxation, should also be front and centre in decision-makers’ minds when considering ESO.
ESO began as a USA and UK movement in the 1970s and has since spread widely internationally. This second edition of the 2022 report reaffirms the significance of employee share ownership plans, providing a comprehensive update on the economic, social and policy case for employee share ownership.
Employee Share Ownership Plans (ESOPs) align well with the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), especially SDG 10 – Reduced Inequalities. Although ESOPs are not a panacea, they can help to deliver significant marginal gains across most SDGs, particularly in the development of sustainable, resilient communities. Four areas of public policy can contribute to support the formation and health of ESOPs – education, legislation, taxation, and research (particularly around benchmarking and statistics):