Responsible Investor

CalPERS’ director of corporate governance, Dennis Johnson, is leaving the fund to become managing director of Shamrock Activist Value Fund. Johnson also intends to step down from his post as Chair of the Council of Institutional Investors Board of Directors. The Corporate Governance Office of CalPERS oversees a $7bn corporate governance investment program and manages CalPERS Focus List programme, governance policy development, and corporate engagements.
The International Monetary Fund’s 23-country international working group of sovereign wealth funds (SWFs) is reportedly hoping to issue a voluntary set of investment principles and practices by October, according to Thomson Investment Management News. The SWFs are seeking to allay Western fears that their investments are politically motivated.
KLD Research & Analytics, the US SRI indices company has launched two new sub-indices and two composite indices based on its KLD Broad Market Social SM Index. The new indices range from small to mid and large cap coverage. Thomas Kuh, managing director at KLD Indexes, said: “By offering a broader range of indexes, the BMSI series now enables more flexible asset allocation.” The series draws its constituent companies from the 3,000 largest U.S. equities.
The Group of Governmental Experts on Cluster Munitions has said it will “negotiate a proposal” on the definition of cluster bombs ahead of an international treaty expected in December this year. Global pension funds, particularly government sponsored schemes, have started scouring their investments for companies linked to the manufacture of cluster bombs after 111 states signed a treaty in Dublin in May to ban their production.

Dow Jones has launched the Africa Titans 50 Index, a pan-African index that measures the stock performance of 50 companies that are headquartered in or generate the majority of their revenues in Africa. The index has been licensed to Van Eck Global, a provider of global investment products, to serve as the basis for the first exchange-traded fund based on pan-African index.
Impax Asset Management has added an institutional share class to its Impax Environment Leaders Fund (IEL). The fund, which is a wholly owned subsidiary of BNP Paribas, a shareholder in Impax, was launched earlier this year to invest in companies developing products and services that deal with environmental problems.
UK cross-industry union Unite says company executives’ pay and bonuses should be linked to meeting environmental targets. The suggestions are detailed in a new report published by Unite: “How Green Is My Workplace?” which surveys 10,000 Unite members in the electronics and IT sector.
Action Aid, the relief charity, has called for all biofuel subsidies to be removed and a five-year moratorium imposed on the diversion of arable land to biofuel crops. In a report, titled, Cereal Offenders, it estimates that the 82% rise in food prices since 2006 has put 760 million people at risk of hunger, while biofuel subsidies to US and EU farmers are worth between $16bn (£8bn) and $18bn a year.
Pension funds will be challenged as the largest pools of global capital within five years by collective growth from Petro-dollar foreign wealth, Asian sovereign investors, hedge funds and private equity, according to McKinsey & Co, the management consultant, reports Financial News. McKinsey said it expected the four groups, dubbed as

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