Investors & Climate Change - Leading Institutions and Their Growing Networks Are Urging Expanded Corporate Disclosure

What are the steadily rising investor expectations for the corporate sectors’ climate change actions and expanded disclosures? We can examine the expectations of leading asset owners/fiduciaries and their asset managers to understand their views on the ESG / sustainability disclosure practices of issuers they provide capital to. This includes keeping close watch on individual institutions and especially the collaborations of investment organizations they participate in.

For example, this news out of London: Some 168 investors hailing from 28 countries are now collaborating to urge companies with “high environmental impact” to use CDP’s system to disclose their environmental data. The companies being targeted by investors represent US$28 trillion in market cap and emit an estimated 4,700 megatonnes (Mt) of carbon dioxide equivalent every year.

The investor collaboration is part of CDP’s 2021 Non-Disclosure Campaign, created to put pressure on companies that have not disclosed their carbon emissions through CDP or have discontinued the practice. Beyond carbon concerns, CDP and its collaborating investors and investor groups are also zeroing in on companies with forest or water security concerns. (Note that some firms disclose to CDP on one theme of concern to the investor but not others – some companies report on climate change but not on water or forestry issues.)

Targeted companies for investor action in the U.S. included at the “top of the As” are such firms as Apple, Amazon, Aramark, Abbott Laboratories, Activision Blizzard, Albemarle Corp, and Alliant Energy. In Switzerland, Alcon; in Sweden, Alfa Laval Corporate AB; in Canada, Allied Properties REIT; in Brazil, Ambev S.A.; in the U.K., Arrow Global Group. The complete list is available here for your searching.

The bold name asset management firms joining the CDP campaign for greater corporate disclosure this year include HSBC Global Asset Management, Legal and General Investment Management, Nuveen, and Schroders.

Investors supporting the campaign include asset managers and separate activist investor collaborations that are part of The Investor Agenda, which has produced a comprehensive framework recently for Investor Climate Action Plans (ICAPs). This effort was founded by seven partners including Ceres, CDP, UN PRI, and UNEP Finance Initiative. The Forum for Sustainable and Responsible Investment (U.S. SIF) and Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility (ICCR) have joined the effort.

The approach is to set out “expectations” in four areas: corporate engagement, investment (managing climate risk in portfolio), enhancing investor disclosure, and policy advocacy (urging actions to drive to the 1.5C pathway). Part of this is an urging of governments to take action to address climate change, moving toward this year’s COP 26 gathering in Glasgow.

The CDP Non-Disclosure campaign is now in its fifth year, enjoying a 39% year-on-year growth in investor participation since the start in 2017, with investor participation up more than 50% since 2020.

This effort is part of a broad movement of investor participants and investor alliances aiming to drive change in the companies they provide capital to, as governments, investors and corporations adopt goals to be part of the societal move to achieve “Net Zero” by the year 2050. These alliances include the Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero (GFANZ), gathering signatories to set science-based targets (SBTs).

Members of GFANZ include 43 banks participating in the Net Zero Banking Alliance (NZBA). The United Nations convened the NZBA to aim for a carbon-neutral investment portfolio by mid-century and will leverage the CDP campaign to target specific companies not disclosing their environmental data.

The opportunity for corporate managements to respond to the CDP disclosure campaign and be eligible for scoring and inclusion in CDP reports is at hand; the CDP disclosure system is open until July 28, 2021. Here at G&A Institute, our team is assisting corporate clients in responding to this year’s disclosure request from CDP.

For corporate managers: If your firm received the CDP request for disclosure for 2021 and you have questions about responding, or about your responses in development, the G&A Institute team is available to discuss. Contact us at info@ga-institute.com.

The details of the CDP campaign and the broad investor network focused on climate change actions and disclosure is our Top Story selection for you this week.

This is just the introduction of G&A's Sustainability Highlights newsletter this week. Click here to view the full issue.