Sir Philip Hampton, chairman of GlaxoSmithKline has been appointed to increase the number of women executives – and to ensure some are appointed to board level – within FTSE 350 companies. Dame Helen Alexander, Chair of UBM, was appointed deputy chair to the review. The UK government said Sir Philip’s review will continue on from Lord Davies’s Women on […]
Read MoreAnalysis of the proxy voting at Russell 3000 company meetings last year found that 61 companies (2.8%) failed in achieving at least 50% support for their say on pay votes which have been compulsory in the US since 2011, according to pay consultants Semler Brossy. Looking at the number of companies that ‘failed’ their say on […]
Read MoreThe Rock Center for Corporate Governance at Stanford University has recently conducted a representative survey of 1,202 Americans to understand public perception of chief executive (CEO) pay levels among the 500 largest US publicly traded companies. The survey found that 74% believe CEOs are not the right amount compared with the pay of an average worker […]
Read MoreMost companies in the UK’s FTSE350 have met the requirements of the recent changes to the Companies Act to report more fully on environmental matters and to report on Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions within their annual reports and accounts, according to a study by the Climate Disclosure Standards Board (CDSB). However, the CDSB, an international consortium of business and environmental […]
Read MoreThe chairman and chief executive of investment giant, BlackRock, Larry Fink has written to the chief executives of major companies in the US and Europe encouraging them to think long-term and to provide their shareholders with more forward-looking plans. Fink wrote a similar letter last year, suggesting that companies have yet to take enough notice of […]
Read MoreThe UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called on investors to help achieve a doubling in global clean energy investments by 2020 at a meeting in New York last week. Although investments rose to a record high last year of $329 billion they are still not at the levels necessary to meet the Paris climate agreement’s goal of limiting global […]
Read MoreThe European Commission is consulting on on how institutional investors, asset managers and other service providers in the investment chain factor in sustainability (ESG) information and performance of companies or assets into investment decisions. The consultation will also gather information about possible obstacles to long-term, sustainable investment. The Commission believes that growing the European Union’s economy needs to […]
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While it is not yet clear if business as a whole has made a firm commitment to sustainable and environmentally friendly growth 2015 was the year that the investment community made critical commitments to finance sustainable growth, according to Dr Richard Mattison, CEO of Trucost writing in the foreword of The State of Green Business 2016 […]
Read MoreWhile US directors say that reputational risk is one of their greatest concerns board members are taking little action to manage risks once they have been identified, according to the sixth Concerns About Risks Confronting Boards survey conducted by US accounting firm EisnerAmper. The report’s authors said that there was a broad trend of boards that identify risk […]
Read MoreCarolyn Fairburn, Director General of business group, the CBI, said that the issue of diversity needs to run right through companies and has called for a new voluntary target of 25% for female senior executives in major UK companies. Speaking recently at an event hosted by law firm Latham & Watkins, Fairburn had been asked to speak about women on […]
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