Companies should disclose a plan explaining how their business model will operate in a net-zero carbon economy, BlackRock CEO Larry Fink says in his annual letter to business leaders.
The head of the world’s largest asset manager says companies reacting slowly to climate change will see their valuations suffer and could be dropped from BlackRock’s active po...
ESG Archive
State Street Global Advisors (SSGA) is ramping up the pressure for improved diversity and inclusion disclosures as part of its 2021 proxy voting and engagement plans.
In a letter to board members this week, SSGA CEO Cyrus Taraporevala announced proxy voting practices intended to make sure that companies are transparent about the racial and ethnic composition of their boards and workforces. According to these practices:
In 2021 SSGA will vote against the...
Close to half the companies monitored by a major investor initiative on climate change have announced a target to hit net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 as corporate action on global warming gathers pace.
Climate Action 100+ (CA 100), which is backed by 545 investor signatories managing a total of around $52 trillion in assets, engages with the 100 biggest greenhouse gas emitters and a further 60 companies it views as key to tackling climate change.
...
‘PepsiCo is a poster child for what people are trying to do’ in terms of ESG reporting, says one of the Corporate Secretary judges. It’s a rapidly evolving field of endeavor for governance teams and their colleagues and one in which our winner has shown dedication to disclosing useful information in an accessible way across several avenues.
PepsiCo in June 2020 published its sustainability report in a new format: all-digital and embedded for the first time on ...
The legal team at Coeur Mining is proud of the evolution its proxy statement has gone through since 2015. Last year the company won the best proxy statement award in the small-cap category, and this year it takes home the same award in the mid-cap category. In recent years, Coeur’s proxy statement has been emblazoned with the firm's miss...
At Nasdaq, the proxy statement is produced internally by a cross-functional working group whose members all have additional jobs to do. This team includes representatives from investor relations, internal audit, legal, the corporate secretary and the design team.
It’s all the more impressive, then, that Nasdaq’s 2020 proxy statement has been judged 'best in class'. Erika Moore, Nasdaq’s assistant general counsel, says it takes the working group about six month...
How many people make up the Federated Hermes engagement and responsible investing team?
We have more than 60 global team members deployed across engagement, stewardship and our responsibility office.
How long have you worked for Federated Hermes, and in which roles?
I joined Federated Hermes in 2008 and was an equity portfolio manager and vice president prior to my current role as director of the responsible investing ...
The week in GRC is taking a break for the holidays and will be back in January. Happy Holidays!
– Reuters reported that ExxonMobil said it plans to reduce its greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions over the next five years to support the goals of the Paris climate agreement. The world’s largest oil and gas companies face heavy investor pressure to meet the 2015 Paris climate goal of limiting global war...
Diversity and inclusion will feature prominently in the thinking of many corporate leaders and investors in 2021. That means corporate secretaries and general counsel will have an important role to play in advising boards, finding candidates and devising disclosures that will help shape narratives on a key set of issues.
The protest movement sparked by the disproportionate impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on people of color and the deaths of African Americans at the ...
As investor demand for ESG information continues to increase, a group of ESG experts believe pressure will build on issuers to seek third-party assurance for ESG disclosures in the near future.
Third-party assurance has been a talking point for the last two years at the ESG Integration Forum – US, hosted by IR Magazine and Corporate Secretary. At both forums, audience members have expressed trepidation about seeking third-party assurance, with common conc...