Responsible Investor

RI round-up Aug 1

RI’s bite-sized round-up of the week’s main Responsible Investment news.

A survey of 350 investment professionals has found that ‘Environmental, social and governance’, ‘sustainability’ and ‘responsible investment’ are the top three terms favoured to define the integration of ‘off-balance sheet’ issues into the analysis of company performance. The survey by Axa Investment Managers and AQ research found that terms such as ‘corporate health’ ‘non-traditional’ and ‘extra-financial’ were less popular. Axa said an important obstacle to the integrating sustainable analysis into mainstream investing had been the lack of agreement amongst investors about what to call it. The survey also found that 68% of buy-side investors and 56% of sell-side providers said that their principal motivation for considering responsible investment factor in investment was to catch long-term performance benefits.
Hermes Equity Ownership Services, the UK fund manager, has launched an initiative to help investors navigate the legal systems of European member states and know their rights when acting in concert. The UNPRI encourages shareholders to work collectively to effectively and proactively exercise their ownership rights. However, the action of “acting in concert” has been made difficult because each EU member state has different rules on shareholder activism and the legal consequences for shareholders acting in concert differ from country to country.
The principles for an investable Pan African SRI benchmark/index based on global best practices adapted to African realities are to be unveiled at a ‘Roundtable on

Socially Responsible Investment (SRI) in Africa’ held at the UN in New York on 16 September.
The first conference of the United Nations Principles for Responsible Investment Academic Network is being held in Maastricht on 17 September in conjunction with the European Centre for Corporate Engagement. The network aims to build a global community of academics and interested practitioners around PRI-related research, and disseminating the latest academic research within the industry. The PRI is also partnering with the Oikos Foundation at the University of St. Gallen in Switzerland, a corporate sponsored body which promoted ecology and social issues in the teaching of business, to conduct the first PhD academy focused on responsible investment, to be held in early 2009. The PRI is also joining forces with the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) in Geneva in November for an investor/public sector dialogue to explore how investors and policy makers can assist each other through responsible investment.
Shell chairman, Jeroen van der Veer, has reportedly dismissed threats of boycotts by ethical investment funds over controversial tar sands operations in North America, claiming campaigners should be careful because failure to exploit unconventional sources of new oil could leave the world using more coal.
 The Guardian UK newspaper reports that oil sands extraction boosted Shell’s earnings by 74% over the last three months and contributed to record profits of nearly $8bn (£4bn) in the second quarter of the year, equivalent to £2m an hour.

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