ACSI names nine Aussie company ‘no reporters’ on sustainability data

Report also points to 35 leaders in ESG info.

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Louise Davidson
, CEO, ACSI

Members of the powerful Australian Council of Superannuation Investors (ACSI), which represents the biggest pension funds in the country as well as influential foreign investors worth a collective $2.2trn in assets, will write to nine Australian companies that it has named as laggards in the ASX200 index because they still produced no report on sustainability data in 2017 after almost 10 years of ACSI assessing the information.
The companies named by ACSI as ‘no reporters’ are:

  • The a2 Milk Company Limited
  • Aristocrat Leisure Limited
  • Altium Limited
  • Australian Pharmaceutical Industries Limited
  • Domino’s Pizza Enterprises Limited
  • Estia Health Limited
  • Galaxy Resources Limited
  • Iron Mountain Incorporated
  • Webjet Limited

ACSI members own on average 10% of every company in Australia, so the resistance by the companies is surprising. But the investor groups says it has been chalking up successes. Following its 2016 report it wrote to 20 ‘laggard’ companies, 11 of which subsequently produced a sustainability report.Despite the resisters, ACSI says there are promising signs of improvement in reporting amongst the country’s leaders. It says 22 ASX200 companies (11%) have now adopted or committed to report to the recommendations of the Financial Stability Board-backed Taskforce on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFDs). It said a further ten are reviewing the TCFD framework. In addition, 95 companies (48 per cent) disclose a climate-related policy statement, while 112 companies (56%) now report their GHG emissions and 42companies (21%) have GHG emission reduction targets.
As well as naming the laggards, ACSI points to 35 companies in the ASX200 that have outperformed others in their sustainability disclosure for the last four years.
Louise Davidson
, Chief Executive Officer at ACSI, said: “Investors are highly attuned to poor or missing information in company reports. Deficiencies may be perceived as potential risks, meaning those companies are less likely to attract investor capital. Conversely, good reporting says that a company is serious about identifying and managing risks and opportunities.”