Responsible Investor

RI round-up March 14

RI’s bite-sized round-up of the week’s major SRI news.

Ethos, the Swiss SRI investment foundation, has dropped a threat of court action against UBS over sub-prime investment losses after the Swiss bank agree to provide a summary of all its reports relating to an inquiry by the Swiss Federal Banking Commission. Ethos, which has been highly critical of risk controls at UBS, said the summary would give shareholders “more in-depth information” than they would normally receive from a special audit.
Institutitional investors have filed a record 54 global warming shareholder resolutions at US companies, double the number filed two years ago, according to Ceres, the environmental investor coalition and the US Interfaith Centre on Corporate Responsibility. Resolutions have been filed with companies in eight industries, including electric power companies, oil and coal producers, airlines and homebuilders.
The two highest profile resolutions will likely be at ExxonMobil and ConocoPhillips in the oil and gas sectors. Investors say Exxon Mobil has been unresponsive to requests during the last ten years that it develop greenhouse gas reduction targets and adopt a policy for renewable energy research and development. ConocoPhillips is being challenged by investors over its plans to become the largest producer of oil from Canada’s tar sands, where extraction has been criticised for environmental damage and greenhouse gas emissions.
Other US companies targeted include Dynegy, the electric power company, Massey Energy, the coal power group, US Airways, and Standard Pacific in the building sector. Many of the investors filing resolutions are part of the Investor Network on Climate Risk (INCR), an alliance of 60 institutional investors with collective assets totalling more than $5 trillion.
The California State Teachers’ Retirement System (CalSTRS), the second largest US pubic pension fund, has filed climate-related resolutions for the first time this year. Jack Ehnes, chief executive officer at CalSTRS, said: “Scientific consensus of the potentially

destructive impacts of climate change on the global economy is clearer than ever. Companies in every industry, especially energy sectors, should be acting now to assess and mitigate climate change risks.” www.ceres.org
PGB, the €10bn pension fund for the Dutch printing industry, has placed an initial €25m in renewable energy to kick-start an estimated €200m commitment socially-responsible investment portfolio, reports ipe.com. The €25m has been invested in the DIF Renewable Energy fund, which invests mainly in wind and solar energy projects. PGB said it planned to invest a total 2% of assets in clean energy, microcredit and environmental and social sustainability projects. The fund will also monitor its existing investment portfolio checked every six months for environmental, social and governance risks using the UN’s Global Compact principles as a benchmark. Dirk Wieman, chief investment officer of GBF – PGB’s pension provider, said: “The first green investment fits perfectly into PGB’s policy to increasingly take sustainable investment criteria into account. Sustainable energy is an important growth market, and PGB reckons that social and financial returns will go together in the long term.”
The Greenpeace China Finance Campaign has launched a campaign called “Uncovering hidden environmental risks” with the aim of helping fund managers, prime brokers and analysts strengthen the environmental elements of their analysis of Chinese companies: Click for info
UK activist fund manager, Hermes Equity Ownership Services, has lost the services of its chairman David Pitt-Watson to the UK governing Labour party, where he will work as general secretary.
The £3.1bn Lothian Pension Fund is reportedly taking a lead role in a class action against Swedish mobile phone company Ericsson, according to ipe.com. The fund alleges the company issued “materially false and misleading statements” costing it $3.2m (€2.1m) in investment losses.


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