Tag Archives: Legal and General Investment Management

Investors & Climate Change – Leading Institutions and their Growing Networks are Urging Expanded Corporate Disclosure

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June 28 2021

by Hank Boerner – Chair & Chief Strategist – G&A Institute

What about the steadily-rising investor expectations for the corporate sectors’ climate change actions and expanded ESG disclosures?

We are able to more closely examine the rising expectations of leading asset owners/key fiduciaries and their asset managers to understand the investors’ views on the ESG / sustainability disclosure practices of issuers they provide capital to.

This includes keeping close watch on individual institutions and especially the collaborations of investment organizations they participate in.

For example, this news out of London: Some 168 investors hailing from 28 countries are now collaborating to urge companies with “high environmental impact” to use CDP’s system to disclose their environmental data.

And note:  The companies being targeted by investors represent US$28 trillion in market cap and emit an estimated 4,700 megatonnes (Mt) of carbon dioxide equivalent…every year.

The investor collaboration is part of CDP’s 2021 Non-Disclosure Campaign, created to put pressure on companies that have not disclosed their carbon emissions through CDP or have discontinued the practice. Beyond carbon concerns,

CDP and its collaborating investors and investor groups are also zeroing in on companies with forest or water security concerns. (Note that some firms disclose to CDP on one theme of concern to the investor but not others – some companies report on climate change but not on water or forestry issues.)

Targeted companies for investor action in the U.S. included at the “top of the As” are such firms as Apple, Amazon, Aramark, Abbott Laboratories, Activision Blizzard, Albemarle Corp, and Alliant Energy. In Switzerland, Alcon; in Sweden, Alfa Laval Corporate AB; in Canada, Allied Properties REIT; in Brazil, Ambev S.A.; in the U.K., Arrow Global Group. The complete list is available here for your searching.

The bold name asset management firms joining the CDP campaign for greater corporate disclosure this year include HSBC Global Asset Management, Legal and General Investment Management, Nuveen, and Schroders.

Investors supporting the campaign include asset managers and separate activist investor collaborations that are part of The Investor Agenda, which has produced a comprehensive framework recently for these investors (HSBC Global Asset Management, Legal and General Investment Management, Nuveen.)

This effort was founded by seven partners including Ceres, CDP, UN PRI, and UNEP Finance Initiative. In the United States, National Association of Plan Advisors, The Forum for Sustainable and Responsible Investing  (U.S. SIF) and Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility (ICCR) have joined the effort.

The approach is to set out “expectations” in four areas:

  • corporate engagement,
  • investment (managing climate risk in portfolio),
  • enhancing investor disclosure, and
  • policy advocacy (urging actions to drive to the 1.5C pathway). Part of this is an urging of governments to take action to address climate change, moving toward this year’s COP 26 gathering in Glasgow.

The CDP Non-Disclosure campaign is now in its fifth year, enjoying a 39% year-on-year growth in investor participation since the start in 2017, with investor participation up more than 50% since 2020.

This effort is part of a broad movement of investor participants and investor alliances aiming to drive change in the companies they provide capital to, as governments, investors and corporations adopt goals to be part of the societal move to achieve “Net Zero” by the year 2050.

These alliances include the Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero (GFANZ), gathering signatories to set science-based targets (SBTs).

Members of GFANZ include 43 banks participating in the Net Zero Banking Alliance (NZBA). The United Nations convened the NZBA to aim for a carbon-neutral investment portfolio by mid-century and will leverage the CDP campaign to target specific companies not disclosing their environmental data.

The opportunity for corporate managements to respond to the CDP disclosure campaign and be eligible for scoring and inclusion in CDP reports is at hand; the CDP disclosure system is open until July 28, 2021.

Here at G&A Institute, our team is assisting our corporate clients in responding to this year’s disclosure request from CDP.

For corporate managers: If your firm received the CDP request for disclosure for 2021 and you have questions about responding, or about your responses in development, the G&A Institute team is available to discuss. Contact us at info@ga-institute.com.

The details of the CDP campaign and the broad investor network focused on climate change actions and disclosure is our Top Story selection for you here.

TOP STORIES

A record 168 investors with US$17 trillion of assets urge 1300+ firms to disclose environmental data (Source: CDP) 

And more on the ESG disclosure front:

House-Approved Legislation Would Mandate ESG Disclosures (Source: National Association of Plan Advisors)

What’s the plan? Corporate polluters lag on setting climate goals (Source: Reuters)

Pressure is Building on the C-Suite – to Start or Advance the Enterprise’s Sustainability Journey

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July 2021

by Hank Boerner – Chair & Chief Strategist – G&A Institute

Pressure points:  The corporate executive suite in recent months has experienced pressure from both inside and outside the organization in terms of rising expectations related to corporate sustainability, responsibility, citizenship, ESG, and so on.

For example, asset owners and external asset managers are asking many more questions now about the sustainability journey of the companies they are invested in, including the company’s ESG strategies, actions, performance, metrics, outcomes, external recognitions, and more.

The customer base for a growing number of companies is now an important consideration related to the supplier/provider’s positioning in its sustainability journey.

The working principle here:  the large customer especially considers the supply chain “partners” to be part of their own ESG footprint.  Third-party organizations pose questions to supply chain partners on behalf of their client base (Ecovadis being an excellent example of this practice).

Consider, too, that the Federal government is the largest buyer of goods and services in the U.S. and the Biden Administration has instituted sweeping sustainability policies on sourcing of many kinds.

Regulators of different sorts are moving towards strongly urging companies to disclose more about their sustainability journeys and considering mandates to help ensure more comparable, accurate, complete, decision-worthy data and narrative disclosures to help providers of capital (investors, lenders, insurers) in their own portfolio management.  We see that now in the U.S. and in the European Union.

There is peer pressure – corporate issuers moving ahead to leadership positions in sustainability put pressure on industry peers to perform better, disclose more, and attain at least middle-of-the-pack positions. And laggards (those not yet on their journeys) are under even greater pressure today.

One place where the leader board really counts is in the now-numerous ESG ratings and rankings provided to institutional investors by the likes of MSCI, Sustainalytics, Institutional Shareholder Services, and other ESG rankers and raters.

And then there is the internal pressure point – employees want to work for a company demonstrating leadership in sustainability and responsibility.  They want to be an integral part of the journey and be a part of the team making great things happen. All this counts in recruitment, retention, and motivating the workforce.

This week we pulled together some of the contours of these pressures on boards and executive and management teams.  As you read this, thousands of people are gathering virtually for the UN Global Compact Leaders’ Summit to discuss the growing pressure on governments, companies, investors, and other stakeholders to take action on climate change and sustainability issues.  The UNGC released the 2021 Survey of Companies & CEOs ahead of the gathering.

Top line results:  Business interests need to transition to more sustainable business models.  Over the past three years corporate leaders have been experiencing the pressures to do this; and 75 percent of survey respondents expect the next three years to be times of increased pressure on boardrooms and executive suites.

Where is pressure coming from?  Certainly, from the investor side.  For example, 450+ investors managing US$45 trillion in assets released a joint statement calling on world governments to create a race-to-the-top on climate policies…

This is the “2021 Global Investor Statement to Governments on the Climate Crisis” that asks for climate-related financial reporting to be mandatory, recognizing the climate crisis.

Seven investment management partners created “The Investor Agenda” to be shared at the recent G7 meeting to encourage advocacy for “ambitious climate policy action” leading up to the Glasgow, Scotland meeting of “The Conference of the Parties” (COP 26) in November.

The Investor Agenda is in the Top Stories below for your reading, along with comments from heads of NYS Common Fund, State Street/SSgA, Alliance Bernstein, Legal and General Investment Management, Fidelity International, and others.

In the U.S., 160 investors with U$2.7 trillion in AUM joined by 155 corporate leaders and 58 not-for-profit organizations are advocating for the Securities & Exchange Commission to protect investors from risks including systemic and financial risks related to climate change by mandating climate disclosure.

By doing this, corporate issuers can clarify the risks they should measure and disclose so that investors can make sound investment decisions.  SEC rules are needed, say the advocates, to provide comparable and consistent information.

Who are these advocates?  A group of state financial officers —  Illinois State Treasurer Michael Frerichs, California State Controller Betty Yee, New York State Comptroller Tom DiNapoli – as well as Steven Rothstein, Managing Director for the Ceres Accelerator for Sustainable Capital Markets and others.  Their suggestions for moving to an SEC mandate is another Top Story selection for you.

G&A is closely monitoring the various pressure points being placed on organizations to start or advance your sustainability journey, and you can detect other pressure points in the story selections in the topic silos.

TOP STORIES