Green Bonds and a UK Green Investment Bank: New public policy resource

Green Alliance has just launched a useful new section of its website called Green Finance UK. This aims to cover the developing public policy debates on Green Bonds and a UK Green Investment Bank. Worth checking out!

Reforming Ownership and Capital Markets

UKSIF has recently submitted responses to the Walker Review of Corporate Governance of UK banks and other financial institutions and to HM Treasury's 'Reforming Financial Markets' consultation. We have also responded to the second consultation in the 2009 Review of the Combined Code. All three responses can be found here.

Learning from corporate responses to environmental regulation

How can financial institutions best respond to today's regulatory debate?

The article 'Why sustainability is now the key driver of innovation' from September's Harvard Business Review has already been blogged about elsewhere (e.g. here).

But I think it is still worth highlighting that banks and financial institutions could find its model useful in rebuilding trust and profitability. C.K. Prahalad and colleagues propose this five stage model:

Stage 1: Viewing Compliance as Opportunity

Stage 2: Making Value Chains Sustainable

Stage 3: Designing Sustainable Products and Services

Stage 4: Developing New Business Models

Stage 5: Creating Next-Practive Platforms

What should a CSR manager do?

My piece in Ethical Corporation calls on CSR managers to play their part by building relationships with their pensions managers and helping them to work with their peers to shift the investment paradigm.

CSR managers looking for an example of good practice by a pension fund today could learn a lot from the Environment Agency Pension Fund's 2009 "Responsible Investment Review" or more generally from its web page on "How we manage our pension funds".

No more business as usual

I have just contributed an opinion piece "Responsible investment: No more business as usual" to the Ethical Corporation website.

It is based on my article in Green Alliance's pamphlet "From crisis to recovery: New economic policies for a low carbon future".

Ethical Corporation is doing a series of opinion pieces from members of their editorial advisory board - of which this is just one. FTSE's Will Oulton, for example, has contributed "Green investment grows up".

Call for ESG Disclosure from "Across the Pond"

Earlier this week, a coalition of over 50 investment firms and professionals led by the US SIF called on the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to require listed companies to report on ESG issues.

They asked the SEC to mandate annual reporting on sustainability indicators in accordance with the GRI framework and on other material ESG matters.

This follows Eurosif’s call on European institutions in April to require disclosure of ESG data by listed companies.

These initiatives give additional support to the view that improved reporting will help strengthen financial markets and foster sustainable business practices.

Where is PADA's "Investment Impact Committee"?

This question is promped by the Annual Report of the Personal Accounts Delivery Authority (PADA).

In Appendix A, you will find details of PADA’s Advisory Committees – the "Consumer Representative Committee" (from Age Concern to Which?), the "Scheme Management and Trustee Advisory Committee" (the pensions professional bodies) and the "Employer Representative Committee" (CBI, etc.).

But where is the "Public Interest Committee" or the "Other Stakeholders Committee"? Or even just the "Investment Impact Committee"? For example, although Personal Accounts will become an investor with global impact, there is no representation for the Climate Group, the Ethical Trading Initiative or indeed for the investor relations functions of the businesses whose shares Personal Accounts will hold to pay our future pensions. Some mistake surely?