ESG Archive

ESG

CII targets better ESG and human capital disclosure

Apr 19, 2019
Ben Maiden
CII targets better ESG and human capital disclosure
The Council of Institutional Investors (CII) has called for action to be taken to improve issuers’ reporting around human capital management and ESG matters, at a time when non-governmental changes appear to have more momentum than regulatory reforms. Human capital management is becoming an increasingly important issue for companies and investors, putting many governance teams in a position where they need to help boards understand the challenges and opportunities...
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ESG

Should boardrooms consider political diversity?

Apr 12, 2019
Judith Ugwumadu
Should boardrooms consider political diversity?
Should corporates be more interested in ‘ideological diversity’ in the boardroom? They should, according to Justin Danhof, director of the National Center for Public Policy Research’s Free Enterprise Project (FEP), a conservative shareholder activist group, who says ‘Silicon Valley-based companies are too liberal’. ‘We’re seeking to protect investors and one area of vulnerability we see is political unanimity,’ Danhof tells IR Magazine. ‘T...
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ESG

Netflix adopts proxy access

Apr 11, 2019
Ben Maiden
Netflix adopts proxy access
Netflix has become the latest US public company to give investors a greater say in who is picked for its board.  According to a regulatory filing, the Netflix board of directors late last month amended and restated the company’s bylaws to add a proxy access provision. The updated bylaws state that a shareholder owning at least 3 percent of the company’s o...
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ESG

Investors underpricing impact of climate-related risks, says BlackRock

Apr 10, 2019
Andrew Holt
Investors underpricing impact of climate-related risks, says BlackRock
Asset manager behemoth BlackRock warns that investors are underpricing the impact of climate-related risks and need to rethink their assessment of asset vulnerabilities. The group, in a major piece of on-going analysis, asserts that while the physical manifestations of climate change are clear, including rising sea levels, and more intense hurricanes, wildfires and droughts, how investors incorporate these risks into their analysis is not. The research indica...
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ESG

Companies face mini-wave of plastic pollution proposals

Apr 05, 2019
Ben Maiden
Companies face mini-wave of plastic pollution proposals
Petrochemical companies are facing pressure to disclose incidents where they have spilled plastic into the ocean, which leads to what is said to be a major source of pollution. As You Sow, a non-profit organization that promotes environmental and social corporate responsibility via engagement, investor pressure and other legal strategies, has filed proposals seeking such reports with four major companies this proxy season. If approved, the proposals would req...
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ESG

Investment Association reveals UK gender pay gap challenges

Apr 02, 2019
Andrew Holt
Investment Association reveals UK gender pay gap challenges
With the government’s gender pay gap reporting deadline of April 4 only two days away, UK asset management trade body the Investment Association (IA) has today launched a new report that looks into the make-up of the gender pay gap in the asset management sector. The report, Closing the Gap, finds that IA members have a median gap – the difference between the midpoints in the ranges of earnings of men and women – of 31 percent. A significant factor in t...
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ESG

MPs lambast pay of FTSE 100 senior executives

Mar 29, 2019
Andrew Holt
MPs lambast pay of FTSE 100 senior executives
UK politicians have slammed executive pay at some FTSE 100 firms as so excessive that they are condemned as ‘corporate greed’ and put the good reputation of UK companies at risk. A report by the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (Beis) notes that over the last decade the earnings of chief executives at FTSE 100 firms have increased four times as much as national average earnings. FTSE 100 CEOs earn around £4 mn ($5.2 mn) per annum w...
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ESG

Game-changing governance set to reshape Indian corporate culture

Mar 28, 2019
Andrew Holt
Game-changing governance set to reshape Indian corporate culture
It’s not hyperbole to say that 2018 was a corporate governance game-changer for India. It was the year the securities regulator, the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi), rubber-stamped a number of recommendations made by the Kotak Committee on corporate governance, and gave these recommendations the regulatory clout they needed. And from April 1 many of these changes will start to apply, with all listed companies required to ensure their implementation. ...
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ESG

BlackRock launches ESG-transparent ETFs

Mar 21, 2019
Andrew Holt
BlackRock launches ESG-transparent ETFs
In a novel ESG investing approach, asset management behemoth BlackRock has launched six new ETFs to offer publicly disclosed data on ESG implications for the assets held within each fund. Launched in Europe, the new funds are aimed at improving ESG transparency by compiling data from MSCI with the ETFs providing an average ESG quality score and an assessment of the carbon intensity of their underlying portfolio. The six funds are tracked across MSCI indices t...
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ESG

Investment Association attacks ‘tokenistic approach’ of FTSE 350 companies to gender diversity

Mar 15, 2019
Andrew Holt
Investment Association attacks ‘tokenistic approach’ of FTSE 350 companies to gender diversity
The Investment Association, the UK trade body for investment managers, and the Hampton-Alexander Review, the government-backed body to increase the number of women on FTSE boards, have written to 69 of the FTSE 350 companies, outlining concerns about the lack of gender diversity on their boards. The letter, which has been sent to companies that have no women or just one woman on the board, asks companies to outline what action they are taking to make progress and en...
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