UN-ESG

EP Adopts Conflict Minerals Law to Address BHR Concerns

April 03, 2017

The European Parliament (EP) has passed a law as part of its business and human rights (BHR) agenda requiring European mineral importers to ensure that they are not contributing to armed conflicts in certain parts of Africa.
Chevron Reports on Financial Threat of Global Warming

March 30, 2017

Bowing to global activist pressure toward the disclosure by oil and gas companies of global warming-related risks, energy giant Chevron has included in its most recent filings with the US Securities and Exchange Commission a statement on the threats of climate litigation and regulation to the future profitability of its operations.
Benchmark Aims for Expanded BHR Disclosure

March 30, 2017

John Morrison of the Institute for Human Rights and Business, which contributed to the establishment of the Corporate Human Rights Benchmark to rank companies on their efforts to implement the business and human rights (BHR) agenda, illustrates how the initiative seeks to pressure businesses to expand their reporting practices on BHR and sustainability.
Australian Regulator Signals Financial Climate Testing

March 28, 2017

In testimony before an Australian Senate Committee, Executive Board member of the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority Geoff Summerhayes indicated his agency may require financial institutions to test climate change scenarios to ensure their investments can withstand the impacts of the phenomenon, and to disclose the results of this testing.
Study: Investors Lack Tools to Monitor "Social" Impacts

March 27, 2017

Casey O’Connor and Sarah Labowitz of the NYU Stern Center on Business and Human Rights have released a study arguing that businesses must release more information on the social impacts of their operations in order to better inform investors on their efforts toward improved environmental, social, and governance (ESG) outcomes.
Canadian Companies Dispute Benchmark Rankings

March 27, 2017

An article in the Financial Post describing responses from Canadian companies disputing their low rankings in a pilot project of the Corporate Human Rights Benchmark, including for not taking into account their responses to the Benchmark's request for information, highlights company concerns with the accountability of civil society assessments of their human rights impacts.
EU Rules Push Investor Reporting on Engagement

March 24, 2017

The European Parliament has voted in favor of measures that would require shareholder participation in corporate policies such as director pay to pressure companies to look toward "long-term interests" and force institutional investors to publicly report the extent to which they engage with the companies in which they invest.
GRI Hosts Africa Workshops on Sustainability

March 23, 2017

The Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) recently held in Ghana the first of a series of workshops it is hosting across Africa calling on companies to use GRI's global sustainability reporting standards to demonstrate their efforts to implement the UN's business and human rights agenda.
GRI, UN "Action Platform" Pushes Companies on SDGs

March 23, 2017

The Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) and UN Global Compact are partnering on an initiative to fulfill the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by developing an "SDGs Action Platform" that will both pressure companies to share their "best practices" in contributing to the SDG agenda and convene a global advisory group to tell companies how to report their SDG progress.
Stock Exchange Initiative Pushes Gender Reporting

March 23, 2017

The Sustainable Stock Exchanges initiative, which pressures stock exchanges around the world to contribute to the fulfillment of the UN's "sustainable development" agenda, has published a report calling on exchanges to do more to push listed companies to advance women's "economic empowerment," particularly by imposing new reporting requirements on these businesses.