Report: 90% of funders switched on to importance of community impact
New research by LBG, the community investment benchmarking group of over 130 global companies, and the UK charity think tank NPC, which surveyed 114 corporate funders, has found that 79 percent are measuring the impact of their community grant funding and only ten percent remain unconvinced about the importance of measuring their company’s community impact. The report, Funding Impact, also found that 42 percent of those surveyed are still not using data to evaluate the overall impact of their community grant programmes. Dan Corry, the chief executive of NPC, said that "since the point of measuring impact is to improve, it’s a concern that the data collected is not used as much as it could be and instead just gathers dust on a shelf. There really are few excuses for not giving this the attention it deserves as it will if we are to allocate funding in a sensible and rational way, and so maximise the good that charitable funding does." (Charity Times)
Responsible Investment
PwC: sustainability factoring in investment choices
According to a survey of 300 US investors by PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), 68 percent of participants are planning to evaluate environmental, social and governance (ESG) factors in future deals. The survey found that investors are increasingly taking ESG factors into consideration when assessing the value of a company. 38 percent of participants said that investors are the stakeholder group most focused on ESG issues, closely followed by senior management at 36 percent. Participants identified regulatory compliance and risk management as the key areas of ESG focus. The main barriers to placing a financial value on their ESG initiatives were identified by participants as a lack of in-house expertise, a lack of methodology and the absence of senior level support. This survey follows a recent report that firms still approach ESG management as a way of mitigating risk with few investors focusing on the opportunity of creating value through ESG activity. (Environmental Leader)
Environment
NGOs call for loss and damage mechanism on global climate action
ActionAid, CARE International and the WWF have launched a new report calling for the establishment of the “loss and damage” mechanism that was discussed at the Doha Climate Change Conference in November 2012, which is designed to make developed countries adapt and respond more quickly to climate change. The report, Tackling the Climate Reality, suggests the creation of institutional bodies to deal with the “unprecedented” effects of climate change, and the NGOs are calling on developed nations to increase mitigation ambitions and to help other countries in the adaptation process. Harjeet Singh, the international co-ordinator for disaster risk reduction and climate adaptation at ActionAid, said that “the mechanism is not just about providing finance to recover from climate change impacts that cannot be adapted to. It is also about generating knowledge and finding new ways to deal with the impacts of climate change.” (Blue & Green Tomorrow)
IKEA to install electric vehicle chargers across UK stores
IKEA has announced that it will install electric vehicle charging points across all car parks at its UK stores by the end of the year. According to research conducted by IKEA, one in six UK residents said that they would be encouraged to switch to an electric car if more charging points were available across the UK. Developed by Nissan, the electric charger units can recharge an electric vehicle from empty to 80 percent full in thirty minutes and IKEA will be the first major retailer in the UK to make them available to its customers. The UK green energy provider Ecotricity, which is also collaborating on the initiative and is providing the 100 percent sustainably sourced green electricity for the charger points, said that the charging points will be free for all customers to use. The chargers will form part of the Electric Highway, which was launched in 2011 and is the UK’s first national motorway network of charging points for electric cars, with 97 installed to date. (Edie)
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