The REP Wrap: Investors assign more value than firms to corporate sustainability
Your weekly summary of corporate sustainability news.
Financial experts within companies place less value on ESG performance than investors and other external stakeholders, according to a new academic study. Research into how 300 valuation specialists factor ESG into areas like discounted cashflows showed shareholders, lenders and consultants “influence this process more than firm insiders” such as managers and officers.
MSCI’s latest review of the corporate climate transition has found that just 12% of listed companies are aligned with 1.5°C. More than 60% project warming of more than 2°C, the data house said, and around a quarter could warm the planet by over 3.2°C. By the end of March, 14% of listed companies had climate targets validated by the Science Based Targets initiative, up 5% from the same time last year.
Ahold Delhaize raised its CDP score from a B last year, to an A- this year. The Dutch-Belgian wholesaler was rewarded by the environmental disclosures platform because of improvements in its Scope 3 reporting, which now includes performance and targets.
Fashion giant Kering has published its first dedicated strategy for having a “net positive” impact on water by 2050. The French firm, which became one of the first to adopt science-based targets for nature in October, plans to launch a stewardship initiative focused on water and land management in Italy’s Arno basin, as part of a pilot using an accounting methodology developed by the World Resource Institute.
The Business Roundtable has called on US legislators to ban shareholders from filing resolutions about “environmental, social and political issues” at companies’ annual meetings. The influential US trade body argued the proxy voting process had been overtaken by a “small but vocal group of activist investors”. It proposed a raft of measures to curtail shareholder rights and the impact of proxy advisors.
The International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB) has proposed changes to its climate reporting standard, to reduce requirements for companies when it comes to Scope 3 emissions. The amendments, which mainly centre on the financial sector, are out for consultation until the end of June.
More than half (52%) of executives say they would relocate their companies’ operations within the next five years in order to access renewable energy, rising to 82% over the coming decade. The findings were part of a survey of 1,500 global companies conducted by NGOs E3G and the We Mean Business Coalition, to find out how firms are thinking about green energy.