Pension funds should be required to publicise their social responsibility policies and offer responsible investment choices suitable for their members, the UK Social Investment Forum has said. This is one of the measures UKSIF says the government should put in place to bring together its stated long-term commitments to sustainable development and to pensions reform. Other measures include the promotion of new investment vehicles that meet social and environmental needs; and committing that any national pension savings scheme will match or exceed European best practice in sustainable investment. UKSIF has criticised the “marginalising of sustainable investment” in the Turner Commission’s proposals for a National Pensions Savings Scheme. Contact UKSIF 020 7405 0040 www.uksif.org.
100 of the best
Aviva, BP, Diageo, HBOS, Land Securities, BAA, Boots and Marks & Spencer are among the 30 British companies featured in this year’s Global 100 Most Sustainable Corporations in the World Listing, which was announced at the Davos World Economic Forum by Corporate Knights and Innovest Strategic Value Advisors. The list is a selection from the MSCI World Index of 100 large blue-chip companies that demonstrate the strongest sustainability performance among their peers. General Electric, Canon and Nike were among the 28 new entries. UK (30), the US (17) and Japan (10) had the most companies among the 2006 Global 100. Morgan Stanley Capital International’s market capitalization weighted index is composed of companies representative of the market structure of 22 developed market countries in North America, Europe, and the Asia/Pacific Region. The listing was accompanied by a benchmarking study, which found that the Global 100 outperformed the MSCI World Index by 7.11%. Contact Innovest www.innovestgroup.com
Bombs away
The Norwegian government has sold its stake in BAE Systems and six other global arms manufacturers because of their involvement in producing nuclear weapons systems, following the recommendations made by its Council on Ethics in September last year. The fund, which invests Norway’s oil and gas wealth in overseas equities and government bonds, has disposed of investments worth a total of £290m in BAE, Italy’s Finmeccanica, France’s Safran and US groups Boeing, Honeywell, NorthropGrumman and United Technologies. The council said its decision was based on BAE’s 37.5% stake in European missile maker MBDA. Contact Council on Ethics www.odin.dep.no
Put it in writing
Despite Wal-Mart’s recent high profile proclamations of commitment to the sustainability agenda, shareholders in the company continue to file resolutions calling for the company to report on its management of environmental and social issues.
The Interfaith Centre on Corporate Responsibility, a coalition of 275 faith-based institutional investors with over $110bn in assets, is calling for Wal-Mart to report on sustainability; equal employment opportunity; product safety; pay disparity between executives and workers; and the lack of medical insurance for the company’s employees.
ICCR Executive Director Sister Patricia Wolf said: “Collectively, we have numerous concerns with the Wal-Mart business model. Given the decline in Wal-Mart’s share price, we believe our concerns will be of interest to other shareholders”. Contact Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility www.iccr.org
Not fully engaged
Shell must improve stakeholder engagement with local communities before starting projects with significant social and environmental impacts to stem losses to the company, investor groups have said. The Ecumenical Council for Corporate Responsibility has filed a shareholder resolution calling for Shell’s directors to “undertake to collaborate with local stakeholder communities to reach before project work begins, a mutually acceptable memorandum of understanding based on an independently conducted and transparent social and environmental impact assessment”.
The ECCR alleges that Shell’s failure to carry out effective and complete environmental and social impact assessments of new developments to existing facilities and its failure to develop and abide by memoranda of understanding with local communities – in contravention of its own guidelines – is leading to losses in production, environmental costs and reputational risks for the company. It also calls for the company board’s social responsibility committee to ensure that all policies, procedures and standards on environmental and social issues are rigorously enforced at all stages of project planning and operation, and for directors to report to shareholders how the company has implemented these measures by the 2007 AGM. Contact ECCR www.eccr.org.uk
In the stoxx
Investors can now track European blue-chip company stocks on the basis of sustainability scores rather than market capitalisation, using two new indices – the Dow Jones STOXX Sustainability 40 Index and the Dow Jones EURO STOXX Sustainability 40 Index. Companies in the indexes are selected from SAM Index’s existing Dow Jones STOXX Sustainability Index and are weighted according to the scores they achieved in SAM’s annual sustainability assessment. Contact SAM Indexes www.sam-group.com
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