Additional Engagement Support to Net Zero Investment

More than 600 leading institutional investors are right now reporting on how they fulfil their Net Zero commitment of reducing carbon emissions from investment portfolios. After picking the low-hanging fruits like divesting from the worst fossil fuel companies and joining initiatives like Climate Action 100+ and other networks, real-world reductions become more difficult. Engagement International can support ensuring continued reductions by identifying and engaging with portfolio companies showing the highest financed emissions, not covered by other engagement initiatives.

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Investors create sustainability through active ownership

Engagement International works for many institutional investors and ensures that the companies in which they invest comply with international standards for sustainability and accountability. The controversial companies are being influenced in a more sustainable direction through active ownership. Read more in the Nordic Business article by Flemming Østergaard, covering the interview with Erik Alhøj, CEO of Engagement International.

Investors create sustainability through active ownership – Nordic Business


Backing utilities’ net-zero ambition with intermediary targets

Electric utilities are among the main contributors to the global GHG emissions due to their reliance on heavy use of fossil fuels. Consequently, the strength of their commitment to achieving net-zero in accordance with the Paris Agreement, as well as credibility of their decarbonisation strategies are of vital interest to the global community and investors. However, in general the last five years brought no significant change in emissions from the top contributors to the climate change in this sector. Out of 30 biggest emitters, 12 (40%) have increased their scope 1 and 2 emissions since signing of the Paris Agreement.

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Long road ahead to net zero for oil and gas majors

The world’s largest oil and gas companies have a main role to play in transition to a net zero emissions economy. Our bi-annual engagement dialogues with 16 of them shows some positive steps forward in terms of climate commitments, target setting and implementation of strategies. However, during the last five years the total direct emissions from the most emitting oil and gas companies increased by 12%.

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10 key points in the new Net Zero Investor Frameworks

Climate change has become the most important ESG issue for institutional investors, corporations, cities, and nations. And “Net Zero” is the new narrative to describe the ambition of being aligned with the Paris Agreement or 1.5-degree goal. All around the world, thousands of organizations are committing themselves to achieve the state of “Net Zero in 2050 or sooner”, where they achieve an overall balance between emissions produced and emissions taken out of the atmosphere.

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Time for Responsible Corporate Tax

The COVID-19 crisis may become the “tipping point” that makes tax havens and aggressive tax avoidance as controversial as bribery and corruption.


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Climate Series: Oil and gas preparing for a carbon-constrained world – leaders and laggards

The investor pressure on oil and gas companies to address climate change as seen in the latest proxy voting season has mounted like never before. In May, BP shareholders, representing over 99% of the votes, passed a resolution asking the company to align its business strategy and investments with the Paris Agreement. When a similar resolution was blocked by Exxon, who had asked the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to reject it, investors urged a vote to split the chief executive officer and board chairman roles as protest.

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Climate Series: Decarbonisation of Cement and Steel Sectors

With their widespread use across multiple sectors, from construction and infrastructure to energy and transportation, cement and steel are central to modern economy. They are also inherently energy and carbon-intensive. Taken together, those two sectors account for up to 15% of global CO2 emissions, and as the world’s population grows, emissions are only projected to increase.

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Climate Series: Facing the Dilemma with Coal Divestments

Still more institutional investors are divesting from coal companies to protect their investments against stranded assets. It is understandable, because most coal companies are not aligned with the well below two-degree goal. However, it raises a dilemma, because the reduced investor owners’ pressure on the coal majors due to divestment can make it more difficult to reach the Paris Agreement. This third blog in our climate series presents the results of Engagement International’s engagement with coal companies over the past three years, which can further inform investors’ strategies to the controversial industry.

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Climate Series: Engaging with the Top 100 Climate Change Contributors

On behalf of institutional investor clients, Engagement International has evaluated and engaged with the 100 listed companies that contribute the most to climate change since the Paris Agreement was adopted in December 2015. Through in-person meetings and conference calls every six months over the past three years, we seek to encourage the companies to align their business with the well-below two-degree goal. This blog is the first of a climate series, in which we will discuss the premise and results of the engagement project “Top 100 Climate Change Contributors” (Top100CCC).

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Is sustainable corporate governance going to dominate the investor engagement landscape?

Last week the EU conference gathered together experts representing various fields, including policy-makers, investors, academia, trade unions and environmentalists, with the aim to reflect on how to foster more sustainable governance in line with the Action Plan on Financing Sustainable Growth. The key message emerging from the event points out that if we want sustainable finance, we need sustainable corporate governance.

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EU encourages active and responsible ownership

Just before Easter, the European Union finally adopted the Shareholders’ Rights Directive that is encouraging institutional investors to behave more as active and responsible owners. After ten years of dispute, the European Council followed the EU Commission and Parliament and gave its green light for the comprehensive directive that applies to more than 8.000 listed companies. The member states have now up to two years to transpose the new provision into domestic law.

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Overpaid CEOs underperform financially

Extremely high payments to CEOs are often explained by the “fact” that they get “peanuts” compared to the much higher financial value they are creating for shareholders. In Denmark, it has recently been the answer to the many critics of the IPO of Nets, which resulted in a gain of nearly USD 100 million for the CEO. And the answer was similar when it was known that America’s new foreign minister, Rex Tillerson, raised an annual compensation of USD 27 million as CEO of Exxon Mobil and an even greater amount when he said goodbye to the oil company. However, two independent studies based on the US data prove that the truth is rather the opposite.

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Climate Engagement leads to better Management

During the last months of 2016, Engagement International engaged on behalf of institutional investors with 28 of the 100 listed global companies that are contributing the most to climate change – now or potentially later, due to their fossil fuel reserves. About 40% of the companies have a clear commitment to the Paris Agreement and are explicit about their own responsibility to contribute to the two-degree-goal. However, in general, the highly exposed energy-, mining-, steel- and cement companies need to do much more. Two thirds have shown an increasing carbon emission intensity over the last five years. And a new set of very ambitious financial disclosure recommendations from the Financial Stability Board (FSB) will push not only these highly climate change exposed companies, but organisations in all industries to adopt a better management of their climate risks and opportunities.

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Strong growth in seven archetypes of responsible investments

The amount of responsible investments in Europe and the US has grown significantly the past two years and strategies are getting still more sophisticated. It began more than 250 years ago with religiously inspired exclusions of companies that could be associated with alcohol, tobacco, weapons etc. This first generation approach is still the most dominating strategy according to new surveys from Eurosif, US SIF and PRI. However, in Europe engagement and voting have grown more than 30% the last two years.

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Denmark’s fall from the anti-corruption throne

There are many indications that Denmark now must relinquish its position as the country with the least corrupt public sector, according to Transparency International. Danish Police has arrested nearly 50 current and former public servants and accused them for being bribed with smartphones, computers and other electronic equipment from the IT vendor Atea. The case is the largest of its kind in Denmark and embarrassing, especially because the persons arrested work for the National Police, the Armed Forces, the Military Intelligence Services, the Public Prosecutor’s Office, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the City of Copenhagen.

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