Belgium’s biggest Shareholder Primacy scandal

There are different degrees of Shareholder Primacy, but in Belgium, this case is known as XXL: Eternit's asbestos.
One of the reasons why Steward-Ownership resonates with so many people is that it is, by far, the most effective lever to put a definitive end to all forms of Shareholder Primacy that come at the expense of society.

Imagine if Eternit had been Steward-owned back then…

This week, the VRT Pano documentary once again made it painfully clear how Eternit continued its asbestos operations for decades, generating profits until the law finally put a stop to it in 1998. While asbestos had already been banned in neighboring countries much earlier, Eternit managed to prolong its deadly business until 1998.

Belgian version of the Sacklers

The Pano documentary revealed that Belgium has its own version of the Sacklers—the American pharmaceutical dynasty that fueled an addiction epidemic in the 1990s with OxyContin.
In Belgium, that role is played by the Emsens family, the sixth wealthiest family in the country. As the owners of the former Eternit, they produced massive amounts of asbestos cement, transporting and processing it wherever possible—long after it was widely known how carcinogenic the fibers were.
 
Even when the deadly consequences of asbestos became undeniable, production continued unabated. It wasn’t until 1998 that a ban was finally enforced. Belgium was by no means a pioneer in this regard. One of the key reasons? “Active lobbying.” Power. The power of money. Even the Asbestos Fund and the paltry €4.8 million (!?) settlement for the cleanup are beyond justification.

De Standaard put it bluntly: “Rarely has the slogan ‘the polluter pays’ been so brutally distorted”.
 
This asbestos case exemplifies a form of capitalism where deadly victims are little more than a side issue.

The root cause of all this?

It is very simple > Shareholder Primacy: exploiting a company for the goal of maximizing profit and shareholder value.
Oor shortly: ‘The only business of business is business.’

Money = power.

This all comes with one fundamental but painful truth: money = power.
It is precisely these extreme consequences of the money = power dynamic that Steward-Ownership seeks to address.
It raises broader questions, such as: What kinds of businesses do we actually want to sustain?
 
This question triggered a search for an ownership model that keeps the mission at the core, provides long-term direction, and doesn’t become distorted by financial incentives.
Well, our search led us to Steward-ownership.

So imagine if Eternit had been Steward-owned back then…
The answer: It probably would have saved thousands of lives.