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RI round-up September 16
RI’s regular round-up of the most important responsible investment news.
A group of thirteen Swedish investors with assets of SEK 3.8 trillion (€370bn), including the four AP funds (1-4) and the Church of Sweden, have launched a sister initiative to the Sustainable Value Creation (SVC) project launched in Norway in August 2008, to push the country’s top companies to report to a public set of standards on issues such as the environment, labour and human rights. The questionnaire has been sent to the 100 largest corporations on NASDAQ OMX Stockholm. The Norwegian version is sent to 74 companies in the Oslo Børs Benchmark Index. The results of the two surveys will be reported in January 2010. The other Swedish companies backing SVC are DnB NOR Asset Management, Folksam, Meta Asset Management, Nordea Investment Funds, SEB, Skandia Liv, SPP and Swedbank Robur.
France’s Natixis Asset Management has created a scientific climate change committee to feed into its portfolio management decisions on questions of country and sector risk and potential. The committee includes Carlos Joly founder member of UNEP-FI, Pierre Radanne, president of 4D, which produces research papers and debates on sustainable development, and Miklos Konkoly-Thege ex president of Det Norske Veritas, the environmental foundation.
The International Finance Corporation (IFC), part of the World Bank Group, has stopped investing in palm oil projects pending a review of concerns over associated environmental and social practices. World Bank
president, Robert Zoellick announced the move in a letter to a group of environmental NGOs that had raised concerns about IFC investments in Wilmar, the Singapore-based agribusiness and in Indonesia’s palm oil sector.
FTSE4Good has added 33 companies and deleted 15 in its latest bi-annual review. Changes to the indices are effective from close of trading on September 18th 2009.
Link to FTSE4Good
The Dow Jones Sustainability World Index (DJSI World) has added 33 companies also deleted 33 firms, leaving the number of components unchanged at 317, following its latest annual review by SAM.
Link to DJSI World
Russell Investments has formed the Russell Sustainability Council to incorporate environmental, social and corporate governance considerations into its manager research and product development, after signing the United Nations’ Principles for Responsible Investment.
Nordic companies are lagging significantly behind their European peers in their management of climate change risks and opportunities, according to report, titled ‘Taking the Temperature’, published by Ethix SRI Advisors and Insight Investment. The report assesses the 40 largest companies in the Nordic region looking at their governance, climate change policies, reporting and efforts to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions.
Link to report
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