Dear SRI reader,
This year, Davos participants will focus their attention on a cross-cutting theme of particular significance for the industry of responsible investing - “Responsive and Responsible Leadership”. How to ensure that growth in corporate profits goes hand in hand with inclusive development? With scandal after scandal, CEOs and shareholders have perhaps not done enough to show a genuine willingness to factor sustainability into their business model, to use as a lever for their competitiveness. The discussions held at Davos this week clearly underline a big need for change, pinning much of the responsibility on the private sector to enacting it. Nevertheless, in order to be sustainable, the real business revolution has to be done “in partnership with governments and civil society,” said Lord Mark Malloch-Brown, the chair of the Business and Sustainable Development Commission, a group of about 35 business, finance, civil society and labor leaders, launched a year ago, to promote the business case for the SDGs and outline how it can contribute. The Commission’s recently issued report “Better Business, Better World”, which outlines a road map to engage companies and galvanise them into embedding SDGs to achieve the 2030 agenda. According to the report, there is a market opportunity to the tune of $12 trillion in food and agriculture, cities, energy and materials, and health and well-being sectors alone. It is therefore imperative for the business community to work with investors and, together, devise the right metrics to achieve the SDGs and use them as part of the investment process. On their side, Asset Managers have already started to integrate them in their investment analysis, using them as the basis for their ESG analysis framework. Although barriers still remain, as the reporting does not adequately follow, we feel there is the right momentum to make the changes that are needed.
On that note, I wish you happy reading!
Flavia Micilotta
- Eurosif's Executive Director
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