Britain’s CEO pay climbs 11% in one year — as working wages flatline
The pay of FTSE 100 bosses surged 11 percent in the past year, pushing their median pay up to nearly £4 million ($5.1 million), according to a report which also found full-time employees received a 2 percent rise over the same period. The report comes at a time of growing shareholder activism over big pay-outs, with companies including BT, Royal Mail and WPP all being forced to contend with stormy annual investor meetings over recent months. The research, published Wednesday, by the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) and the High Pay Centre showed a full-time worker on a median salary of £23,474 would need to work 167 years to earn the median annual pay of a FTSE 100 chief executive — up from 153 years in 2016. (CNBC)
Diversity
Number of female CEOs at Fortune 500 companies drops by 25 percent
After reaching an all-time high of 32 in 2017, the number of female CEOs at Fortune 500 companies dropped by 25 percent in the past year. Long time PepsiCo CEO Indra Nooyi will step down in October, leaving only 24 women at the helm of America’s 500 largest publicly-traded companies. Nooyi’s departure highlights another glaring statistic: in her absence, only two Fortune 500 CEOs are women of colour. Ursula Burns, who left the CEO role at Xerox in 2016, was the first and only black woman to occupy the top spot at a Fortune 500 firm. In a 2017 interview with Fortune magazine, Burns ran down a list of reasons why, citing school systems that fail to prepare low-income kids for work and workplaces that relegate women—particularly women of colour—to supporting roles. (Triple Pundit)
Environment/ Waste
Thailand to ban imports of high-tech trash and plastic waste
Thailand will ban imports of 432 types of scrap electronics within six months, an environment ministry official said on Thursday, the latest country to respond to China’s crackdown on imports of high-tech trash this year. Southeast Asia nations fear they are the new dumping ground for the world’s trash after China banned the entry of several types of waste as part of a campaign against “foreign garbage”. The Thai ban covers electronic circuit boards to old television and radio parts and will take effect within six months, a senior environment ministry official told Reuters on Thursday. Thailand also plans to ban imports of plastic waste in the next two years, the environment ministry official said. Thailand’s military government has said improving the country’s waste management infrastructure is a priority and set goals for 2021. (Reuters)
Tax
Oil firms use secretive court hearing in bid to stop Vietnam taxing their profits
Two multinational oil companies, ConocoPhillips and Perenco, have launched a pre-emptive legal strike, seeking to stop Vietnam from collecting taxes on the profits made in a major oil deal. An investigation by Finance Uncovered has found that ConocoPhillips and Perenco will attempt to stop the Vietnamese government from levying an estimated $179m (£140m) in taxes on the profits made from the sale of oilfields in the country. A spokesman for ConocoPhillips said: “The sale was between two UK-incorporated and resident entities with no taxable presence in Vietnam. The target companies are also UK companies. As a result, no taxes were owed on the sale in Vietnam.” The dispute will be heard at a secretive international court, managed by the UN, little known outside privileged legal circles. The result could mark a significant shift in the way multinationals attempt to avoid paying taxes to poorer countries. (Guardian)
Sustainable Development
UN Global Compact: Corporates must stop ‘cherry-picking’ the SDGs
Large businesses will soon risk losing investor interest and stakeholder trust unless they stop “cherry-picking” which of the United Nation’s (UN) Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) they report on and omitting negative impacts from their sustainability reports, according to UN Global Compact’s (UNGC) chief of programmes, Lila Karbassi. With members of the UNGC noticing a trend among corporates towards selecting the easiest SDGs and related targets to report on, Karbassi urged companies to focus on targets that are most material to their operations. Karbassi explained that the Compact had seen a growing number of investors moving to increase funding for green business projects, indicating that companies which fail to track and communicate both positive and negative contributions to all 17 Global Goals could soon lose out on investment. (Edie)
Event
Business & Climate Summit: Managing Climate-Related Risks & Capitalising on the opportunities
1st October| London
Given the rise of climate-related soft and hard law – the TCFD, EU NFD – this summit aims to help attendees to understand their impacts on business and to develop an appropriate strategy, focusing on how to;
Map climate risk to identify high-risk areas and develop an appropriate action plan
Navigate the complexity of various climate-related disclosure standards
Move beyond reporting to tie climate in the strategy and commercial goals
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