The Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures set up by the Financial Standards Board has outlined the principles and objectives for its work. In its first report the Task Force said that despite a range of initiatives the existing climate-related disclosure remained fragmented and incomplete and there was only a limited number of reporting regimes focusing on […]
Read MoreSurvey of American institutional investors finds low take up of ESG criteria in investment decisions
There is a low rate of adoption of environmental, social and governance (ESG) criteria in investment decisions among North American institutional investors according to a survey conducted by OFI Global Asset Management and Pensions & Investments. The survey found that 77% of the 240 institutional investors questioned did not use ESG criteria in their investment decisions, 6% said they […]
Read MoreThe US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has ruled that oil giants, ExxonMobil and Chevron, need to include shareholder proposals at their AGMs requesting information on the impact on their businesses of the policies on reducing carbon emissions and responding to global warming. Both companies had sought permission to block a shareholder vote on the proposals […]
Read MoreThe United Nations-supported Principles for Responsible Investment (PRI) initiative has launched a report, How Asset Owners Can Drive Responsible Investment: Beliefs, Strategy and Mandates, calling on asset owners to do more to reflect ESG risks and opportunities in their investment beliefs and mandates. The report, states that although many asset owners have made commitments to responsible investment, the majority […]
Read MoreAs automatic-enrolment workplace pensions are rolled out to more employees UK pressure group, ShareAction, which campaigns to achieve ‘an investment system that truly serves savers and communities, and protects our environment for the long term’, has produced its first benchmarking survey of the market. The nine leading pension providers in this market were examined and an overall benchmark score […]
Read MoreAudit committees are increasingly overloaded and UK companies are looking at other way to monitor corporate responsibility (CR) and sustainability issues, according to a report published by the Institute of Business Ethics (IBE). An IBE survey of the FTSE 350 carried out with the support of the ICSA: The Governance Institute and Mazars found that […]
Read MoreThe UK government is consulting on how to incorporate the EU’s Non-Financial Reporting Directive into UK law and into the UK’s current company reporting framework. This amends an earlier directive and requires companies, with more than 500 employees, to disclose specific non-financial information as part of the company reporting. The aim is to provide investors and other stakeholders with a more […]
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 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 […]
Read More