The latest edition of our Sustainable Views newsletter
Dear reader,
The EU Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive continues to cause tensions. After EU member states failed last week to vote on the planned law, sources close to the negotiations suggest there is little hope the directive will be voted on this week, with it currently not on the agenda of today’s, or Friday’s, meeting between member states. France, Germany and Italy are seen as the main trouble causers.
Meanwhile, AGM season is nearly upon us. Given the continual lack of many companies to implement plans to transition their businesses in line with the Paris Agreement, activists are likely to continue their actions to disrupt proceedings, posing questions, according to some, about the future of in-person AGMs.
Last year, non-profit ShareAction deputy CEO Simon Rawson told me: “We need to find ways to preserve a forum for discussion and democratic process between companies and their shareholders, of all views,” adding he hopes protests do not “lead to companies calling for these important democratic forums to be shut down”.
In addition to companies’ progress, or lack thereof, on cutting carbon emissions being the subject of investor interest, executive pay and its links to climate transition plans is increasingly becoming a subject of interest. More and more companies are linking their Es to their Gs, and tying chief executive pay packages to company action around net zero. However, not everyone agrees this is the best way to get those at the top of the tree to implement ambitious emissions reduction plans. You can find my analysis of executive pay and environmental performance here.
Today, we also bring you an opinion piece urging companies to get cracking on the EU Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive – a set of rules aimed at helping investors access crucial ESG details from companies. Mauro Cozzi, co-founder of Emitwise, a UK-based platform that helps companies manage their carbon accounting, insists companies would be wise to crack on with ambitious climate action despite delays in sector-specific standards under the CSRD.
You can read his piece here.
Finally, non-profit Planet Tracker has hit out at big chemical and consumer companies, including Procter & Gamble and Colgate-Palmolive, for being members of trade associations that, it says, are not aligned with net zero.
Only 8 per cent of S&P100 companies review their trade associations’ climate policies, the report says, citing data from US non-profit Ceres. You can read our summary and find Planet Tracker’s report here.
That’s plenty for you to discuss over your Valentine’s dinner.
Until tomorrow,
Alex
Alex Janiaud is the senior investment correspondent for Sustainable Views