Responsible Investor

looking for a Geneva-based management assistant to develop its activities.
Shareholders at HSBC will vote this week (Friday) on controversial director pay packages whereby five directors could share £120m over the next three years. The Association of British Insurers has issued an “amber” rating to HSBC investors, indicating concerns over the pay report. Pirc, the corporate governance adviser, says shareholders should vote against the pay proposals, which it said were “excessive”.
US quoted mining firms will reportedly be forced to disclose every payment over $100,000 in a measure to be brought before US legislators next month, according to the UK Observer newspaper. The Extractive Industries Transparency Disclosure Bill, being presented by Barney Frank, chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, is part of drive to ensure transparency and thwart corruption in the extractive industries.
Unite, Britain’s biggest union, says it will table a resolution at the forthcoming July AGM of M&S, the UK clothing retailer, warning that it faces significant reputational risks over alleged discrimination to migrant employees in its UK and Irish supply chain. Unite joint general secretary, Tony Woodley, said: “M&S have made enormous profits, while we have had complaints from some workers in its supply chain who feel they are being forced to accept unequal treatment and discrimination.”
Mike O’Brien, UK Minister of State for Pensions Reform, has said the trustees of the personal accounts

delivery authority (PADA), the proposed obligatory pension savings plans to be introduced in 2012, are considering offering an ethical investment option for the regime. Speaking at the launch of UK National Ethical Investment Week, O’Brien said: “This marks the beginning of a serious national conversation as to how we invest.
We don’t want Personal Accounts to be overcomplicated but do want there to a choice of funds for those who desire it. Green and ethical investment has been attracting some debate on floor of the House of Commons and beyond.”
The UN’s carbon offsetting programme is wasting billions of euros by paying industries in developing countries to reduce climate change emissions on projects that were already planned, reports The Guardian, the UK newspaper. It said a working paper from two senior Stanford University academics examined more than 3,000 projects applying for or already granted up to $10bn of credits from the UN’s Clean Development Mechanism funds over the next four years. The paper concluded that the majority should not be considered for assistance because they would be built anyway. The CDM is supposed to support additional emissions cuts above what those already planned. David Victor, law professor at the Californian university, said: “It looks like between one and two thirds of all the total CDM offsets do not represent actual emission cuts.”

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