The year in review
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New investor initiatives in 2021
As a responsible investor, we are actively participating in investor initiatives around various ESG topics. We are currently part of 36 initiatives, including the 7 new initiatives that we joined during 2021.
Finance for Biodiversity Pledge In 2021, we took the next step on the journey of addressing biodiversity-related risks and opportunities by becoming a member of the Finance for Biodiversity Pledge initiative. As a Pledge signatory we commit to collaborate, engage, assess our portfolio’s biodiversity impact, set targets and report on signifi- cant positive and negative biodiversity impacts linked to our investments by at latest 2024. We expect biodiversity disclosures to follow the same pat- tern as climate risk, where investors are inclined to publish information so that, in turn, they demand more granular and material data from portfolio companies. These insights will be key to embed natural capital risk into the decision-making and strategies.
• Investor Statement to Governments on the Climate Crisis: Signed by 587 investors with USD 46 trillion in assets, the investor statement urges governments to rapidly improve their climate policies and warns that laggards will miss out on trillions of dollars in investment if rapid and sufficient actions are not taken. The statement sets out five climate-related actions governments need to urgently undertake • Investor Statement in Support of Mandated Human Rights and Environmental Due Diligence in the European Union: As one of the 94 investors with more than USD 6 trillion in assets, we signed a public statement calling on the European Commission to make sure that the new directive on corporate due diligence ensures corporate accountability for human rights and environmental impacts through administrative and civil liability, and access to remedy for affected people • Investor Statement on Corporate Accountability for Digital Rights: We were one of the 77 investors representing over USD 5.9 trillion in assets, signing an investor statement expressing investors’ concern about the weak governance of digital rights risks and the lack of transparency and accountability in the information and communications technology sector, affecting people’s rights to privacy and freedom of expression, including a lack of users’ control over their own information and how it is used. The statement requests companies to consider: 1) Commit to and implement robust human rights gov- ernance, 2) Maximize transparency on how policies are implemented, 3) Give users meaningful control over their data and data inferred about them, 4) Account for harms that stem from algorithms and targeted advertising
Investor statements signed during 2021:
• IIGCC Investor Position Statement “Vote on Transition Planning”: A group of 55 leading investors, managing more than USD 14 trillion of assets, are calling for the implementation of new corporate governance measures to ensure shareholders can hold companies to account in achieving ‘net zero emissions commitments’. Investors are calling on companies to disclose a net zero transition plan, identify the director responsible for the plan and provide a means for investors to vote annually on progress against the plan • Investor Statement for Stronger Biodiversity policies ahead of COP15: Representing 78 financial institutions, the initiative urges world governments to halt and reverse biodiversity loss, and calling for a realignment to a nature- based economy that could generate USD 10 trillion of annual business opportunities and nearly 400 million jobs by 2030 • Investor Statement on Human Rights and Business Activities In Myanmar: A global partnership between 86 investors, with more than USD 4 trillion in combined as- sets under management, calling on companies to uphold their corporate responsibility to respect human rights by undertaking enhanced due diligence to identify and ad- dress human rights harms and in so doing, mitigate legal, financial, and reputational risks associated with such violations
You can find a full list of the investor initiatives we are currently participating, in the appendix, page 45.
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