RI Europe 2015: Caisse des Dépôts and Swedfund International win RI Reporting Awards

France’s Caisse des Dépôts and Swedfund International are this year’s winners of the RI Reporting Awards 2015 – for Best RI Report by a Large Fund and Best RI Report for a Medium & Small Fund, respectively. The awards were bestowed on the two public financial institutions today, the first day of the RI Europe 2005 conference in London.

The RI Reporting Awards – now in their third year – showcase excellence in responsible investment and ESG reporting, encouraging best practice and transparency by recognising the highest standards in the disclosure of responsible investment activities by asset owners globally.

Public disclosure, accountability and transparency enhance the credibility of responsible investment, leading to higher standards. Using publicly available information, the judges looked for reporting best practice in terms of simplicity, relevance, disclosure and process.

Starting with Caisse des Dépôts, the awards jury noted that its RI report was one of the most detailed and transparent of any submitted. It said: “There is a very detailed description about ESG (environmental, social and governance) integration for each asset class.” Other reasons for the award were board diversity at the bank and the use of independent auditors. The jury lauded Swedfund’s RI report as “most informative and comprehensive.”It said: “The report’s strengths lie in its clear definitions of what impacts it views as constituting success and how they can be measured. It specifies these clearly (jobs created, taxes paid, investee company growth) and then reports aggregated and investment-specific numbers.”

In the Large Funds category, the RI reports from Swedish state buffer fund AP4 and CalPERS, the US pension giant, were given commendations. In AP4’s case, the jury liked the fact that the scheme provided comprehensive data on its RI activities and the improvements to them. CalPERS produced a “solid report that linked investment beliefs, managing risk, and ESG considerations into a cohesive approach,” the jury said.

In the Medium & Small Funds category, the reports from the UK’s Environment Agency Pension Fund and the General Board of Pension and Health Benefits (for the United Methodist Church – UMC) were also commended.

The jury commended the Environment Agency pension scheme for its “strategic commitment to have 25% of its assets (£2.8bn €3.9bn) invested along sustainable/responsible criteria by 2015.” The scheme for the UMC was commended for providing “case studies on a variety of in-depth ESG topics like water preservation, disaster relief and conflict minerals.” Link