As 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 […]
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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 MoreThis year’s World Economic Forum (WEF) annual meeting in Davos gave political and business leaders an opportunity to take stock of the United Nations (UN) 2030 Sustainable Development Goals and the Paris Climate Agreement (COP21) agreed last year. Ban Ki-moon, UN Secretary-General, told participants said now it is time to act. “The only agenda greater than […]
Read MoreCurrent ethical audits of clothing and other manufacturers are not effective and tend to reinforce existing business practices, while also weakening governmental oversight, according to a new study by Sheffield University’s Political Economy Research Institute. The report’s authors argue that the audit regime is ‘working’ for corporations, but failing workers and the planet. Labour abuses, poor working […]
Read MoreThose of us familiar with Disney’s “Herbie” film series were perhaps not at all surprised at the recent travails to have hit VW. After all, if their cars can be intelligent enough to compete on their own in rally-car races, surely rigging the odd emissions test or two would be simple to do? Back in […]
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