March 9th, 2010

NSFM participant Matt Haigh is named Editor of first RI academic journal

Call for papers - World’s first journal for responsible investment

Press Release: London, 4th February 2010

The world’s first journal for responsible investment, The Journal of Sustainable Finance & Investment has been announced and will be launched in 2011 comprising of four editions per year. The publication will be the first journal to provide a dedicated international forum for the growing number of researchers, policy makers and practitioners working in sustainable finance and investment. The focus of this inter-disciplinary, peer-reviewed journal will be environmental, social and governance principles as formulated in managed investment, banking, project finance and philanthropy.

Dr Matthew Haigh, Associate Professor at the Aarhus School of Business, Aarhus University, Denmark, has been appointed Editor-in-Chief of the journal. He has published widely in the area of sustainable investment and is an active member of several international sustainable investment networks, including the UNPRI Academic Network.

The journal is currently accepting submissions for a themed issue on Regulatory Frameworks for sustainability in financial markets. For further details, please visit their website.

March 9th, 2010

Greater Focus Being Given to Understanding the Role of Fiduciary Duty in Economic Sustainability

NSFM participants have been at the forefront of growing attention that is being focused on how interpretation of fiduciary duty has impeded efforts to manage many of the long-term and systemic risks to which pension fund assets are exposed. In a recent meeting attended by several NSFM participants, the chief investment officers of three large US pension funds all agreed that traditional legal interpretations of fiduciary duty seem oblivious to many of the real world risks that came to the forefront in the economic crisis. After unrecognized and systemic risks wiped out more than a decade of investment returns, many pension fiduciaries are questioning whether they have an obligation to measure and manage exposure to those risks. They are asking if fiduciaries have a duty to look beyond financial and market-relative measures of risk to address practices that contributed to such widespread damage of future pension security.
Participants in the Network for Sustainable Financial Markets (NSFM) see these issues as central to pension sustainability and have created a Working Group devoted to fostering an evolution in the understanding of fiduciary duty.  In addition, NSFM participants and others are organizing educational events for fiduciaries, writing papers and doing research on these issues. The following are just some of the initiatives that illustrate how this evolution of fiduciary duty is taking shape:
The Fiduciary Standard and Beyond (Hennick Centre for Business and Law; FAIR Canada)  http://www.hennickcentre.ca/documents/ConferenceBrochure2.pdf.
Rethinking of Fiduciary Duty - Capital Matters VIII Conference (Labor and Worklife Program at Harvard Law School) http://www.law.harvard.edu/programs/lwp/LWPpensions_conferences.html.
Evolving Fiduciary Duty of Public Pension Plans (Institutional Investor Conferences) http://www.sbtklaw.com/files/pdf_news/news_28.pdf.
Modernizing Pension Fund Legal Standards for the Twenty-First Century (Network for Sustainable Financial Markets) http://www.sustainablefinancialmarkets.net/2009/02/09/modernizing-pension-fund-legal-standards-for-the-21-century/.
Posted by Keith Johnson on 9 March 2010
March 5th, 2010

Two NSFM participants are members of the SEC’s newly created Investor Advisory Committee (IAC)

Adam Kanzer from Domini Social Investments and Stephen Davis from the Millstein Center at the Yale School of Management. The IAC is undertaking consideration of further expanding required environmental, social and governance disclosure under the leadership of the IAC’s Investors as Owners Subcommittee, which Stephen Davis Chairs.

http://www.sec.gov/spotlight/investoradvisorycommittee.shtml

Any NSFM participants who would like to collaborate on comments or a consultation paper for the IAC review, please contact Cynthia Williams at cwilliam@law.uiuc.edu.

March 5th, 2010

SEC Actions and Proposals to Prioritize Needs of Long-Term Investors

Recently the SEC issued interpretive guidance for companies concerning their disclosure related to climate change.  A copy of their guidance can be found at: http://www.sec.gov/rules/interp/2010/33-9106.pdf

Soon thereafter, Commissioner Luis A. Aguilar gave a speech putting that action into a larger context, that of the need for the SEC to prioritize the needs of long-term investors.  A copy of the speech can be found at: http://www.sec.gov/news/speech/2010/spch020510laa.htm

December 14th, 2009

Climate Bonds Initiative

The attached is a 4 page briefing on the development and use of Climate Bonds. This project is being conducted in partnership with the Carbon Disclosure Project.

climate_bonds_4pager_2dec091

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