Friday 28 November 2014

ESG - where are the workers?

There's an interesting PRI report just published on investor engagement on public policy. It is worth a read. But I thought I'd carry out a little experiment to see the relative emphasis put on different issues as measured by mentions.

Here's the scores on the doors -

Sustainable+sustainability - 56 (37+19)
Climate - 53
Environment - 34
Governance - 31
Social - 19
Employee - 5 (of which 3 are part of the name of an investment institution)
Employment - 2
Union - 2 (including 1 in 'European Union')
Inequality - 1
Labour - 1
Worker - 0

To be clear, this is not a criticism of this particular report, it's a general point, and this is a very simplistic measure. But I wonder if anyone in this world would be surprised? Personally I think it's pretty indicative of where the RI community is at currently. The people whose money is being organised, and used to engage with corporates, don't get much of a look in. Attention is very much focused on environmental issues, and climate change in particular.

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