If you think that investing in an SRI fund will guarantee green credentials, think again. A new study ranking the UK’s 44 biggest investment and mutual funds on the basis of their carbon footprints – the amount of greenhouse gases they are responsible for producing – finds that some SRI funds actually have a larger carbon footprint than many mainstream funds. The Old Mutual Ethical Fund, for example, has a footprint more than twice that of top performing mainstream fund, Lazard Investment Funds – UK Alpha Fund.
The ranking, launched by research company Trucost on June 12, enables investors to compare funds on an environmental basis. It will be published every six months so that investors can track how different funds are managing their carbon risk. Carbon emissions have become a financial issue with a real price, following the introduction of the EU Emissions Trading Scheme in 2005. Contact Ashleigh Lezard, Trucost 020 7321 3731 www.trucost.com
Real risks
F&C, Calvert and the California Public Employees’ Retirement System are among a group of 27 US institutional investors managing more than $1,000bn in assets that has called on the Securities and Exchange Commission to require listed companies to disclose the risks that global warming poses to their financial performance. The initiative, coordinated by US-based coalition of investors Ceres, called for the SEC to:
– enforce existing disclosure rules on under-reported material risks such as climate change
– provide guidance on how climate change is material to shareholder value
– require companies to include in their proxy statements any shareholder proposals asking them to report on these risks.
Rob Feckner, chairman of CalPERS said: “Investors are not receiving the climate risk information from companies that is essential to their investment decision making”. Contact Ceres 00 1 617 247 0700 www.ceres.org
Nordic no to Wal-Mart
Wal-Mart is being boycotted by the Norwegian government’s pension fund – the largest in the world – for alleged “serious and systematic” abuses of human and employment rights”.
The pension fund said the council had found “an extensive body of material” that indicated Wal-Mart had broken norms, including employing minors in breach of international rules, allowing hazardous working conditions at many suppliers and blocking workers’ efforts to form unions.
Other alleged abuses listed:
– putting pressure on employees to work overtime without extra compensation
– discriminating against women in pay terms and
– blocking “all attempts to unionise”. Contact Runar Malkenes, Government Pension Fund 00 47 22 244 109 odin.dep.no
Conflict and resolutions
The number of social and environmental shareholder resolutions tabled for AGMs in the US has increased from 169 for the first half of 2005, up to 180 for the same period this year. The analysis, based on data tracked and supplied by Institutional Shareholder Services, also reveals that by June this year, the number of corporate governance resolutions that have come to vote or were under consideration at US corporate meetings stood at 400, up from 383 for the same period in 2005.
Global warming resolutions stood at 32, as compared with 34 last year – but a further twelve were withdrawn after agreements were reached with management. Resolutions on toxics and pollution reduction were 22, up from 12, while calls for disclosure of public contributions and donations rose from 39 to 43. Contact Cheryl Gustitus, ISS 00 1 301 556 0538 www.issproxy.com
in brief Bank of China has launched China’s first ever socially responsible investment fund. The Sustainable Growth Equity Fund will include criteria of sustainability of the business model, corporate governance, corporate strategy and the attitude towards social responsibility.
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