ESG Risk Management in Raw Material Sourcing

SLR Consulting and RCS Global's forthcoming webinar 'ESG Risk Management in Raw Material Sourcing: Regulation & Finance as Key Drivers' touches upon the ESG Due Diligence Regulations, which are becoming more prevalent and require both international and EU-based business to manage social and environmental risks in their supply chains. Alice Valvoda from RCS and Ramona Dauner from Citigroup cover how this impacts the raw material supply chain, as well as investors’ decisions and how investor ESG criteria impact supply chain actors who seek to futureproof their investability.

Double Materiality Built around the New Solvency II Directive

As European companies are facing and understanding the strong connection between sustainability risks and financial and operational risks, sustainability risks are increasingly becoming more important within the Enterprise Risk Management of these companies. The insurance sector, with the concept of risk ingrained into its nature, is going through a period of transition towards integrating sustainability risks into investment strategies and underwriting activities. This article elaborates on the recently updated Solvency II Directive and discusses practical implications for European insurance companies.

Activating Materiality to Accelerate ESG Performance

How can a materiality assessment be used to effectively accelerate a company’s sustainability performance? On September 23rd, Finch & Beak organized a webinar focused on materiality activation: transforming the materiality assessment from a reporting tool to the steppingstone for activation of company’s sustainability program. In this article, you can find a summary of the session including three tips for a successful activation of materiality.

What You Need to Know about the EU’s Sustainable Finance Regulations

Having over 9 billion people living well within planetary boundaries by 2050 is an ambitious, yet crucial goal. As an enabler for the urgent transformation required to meet this objective, redirecting finance towards sustainable investments plays an essential role. Europe has already taken important measures to shape the future of its financial sector towards a more sustainable future. These have far-reaching implications for all financial market participants operating in Europe and may inspire other parts of the world to accelerate on the topic of sustainable finance. This article gives a brief overview of sustainable finance in Europe and its global implications for companies.

Summary of S&P Global’s Webcast on Sustainable Finance

S&P Global announced changes for its criterion Sustainable Finance in the Corporate Sustainability Assessment (CSA), to better align with recent developments around the topic. This event was followed by a webcast dedicated to the Sustainable Finance criterion, to outline the trends and further introduce the upcoming methodology changes. This article gives a brief summary of the take-aways from this webcast.

Summary of SAM's Webcast on Sustainable Finance

On the 12th of November, SAM conducted its fourth webinar on the Dow Jones Sustainability Index (DJSI) 2019 results. This webcast zoomed in on the criterion of Sustainable Finance which was introduced to the 2019 assessment for the banking, diversified financial services, and insurance industries. The criterion replaced the former criteria Business Risks & Opportunities and Controversial Issues, Dilemmas in Lending & Financing. Download our free summary of the highlights in the attachment of the article.

Bloomberg Sustainable Business Summit: London

This year's Sustainable Business Summit will take place in Bloomberg’s European headquarters in London for the third year. The summit welcomes corporate executives, investors and sustainability experts to learn and engage in conversation about sustainable business strategies in a post-Brexit world.

How Investors See Culture and Purpose as Keys to Profit

As over a quarter of assets under management across the globe are now being invested according to ESG principles, companies are well advised to maximize their ESG performance. However, straight-forward short-term improvement interventions will fall flat when your company is lacking a culture of sustainability that advances performance over the long-term. Investors are understanding this more and more, and are looking to understand what your company is doing to foster and cultivate a corporate culture that is aligned with the company’s strategy and purpose.

Mature Materiality Management for Long-Term Shareholder Value

Over the last few years, the link between financial interest and companies’ effective management of ESG issues and risks has rapidly become more and more evident. We see an increasing number of cases where corporate loans are issued by financers such as ING, BBVA, and DBS Bank whereby interest rates are linked to sustainability performance as indicated by third-party ratings such as Sustainalytics or inclusion in the Dow Jones Sustainability World Index. These examples make the business case for an effective management of the right ESG issues extremely straightforward.

Access to Capital is Driving ESG Performance

Increasingly sustainability frontrunners are leveraging their position as leaders by making deals with their banks. Philips, Barry Callebaut, and Generali are recent examples of companies that have successfully engaged with their capital providers to develop facilities with innovative sustainable and green features. By linking interest costs to ESG performance such as targets on green investments or progress made on sustainability initiatives, a strong business case for sustainability is created. Analyzing the different ESG benchmarks is a useful first step to further understanding ESG performance, as well as monitoring progress, and guiding decision-making to further accelerate sustainability performance.