Tag: ShareAction

HSBC backtracks on climate in updated net zero transition plan – ShareAction response

Stuart Mitchell

Reacting to HSBC’s recent net zero transition plan, Louise Marfany, Director of Financial Sector Standards at ShareAction, said: “Today’s update from HSBC is an egregious example of backtracking on climate that responsible investors will not tolerate. This is profoundly irresponsible behaviour from one of the largest banks in the world at a time when extreme heat, droughts and floods exacerbated by climate change are destroying lives and wreaking havoc on economies around the world. “HSBC has declared more than 80 per cent of its clients expect to accelerate their approach…

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Banks’ low-ambition and incoherent climate targets put net zero goals at risk – new ShareAction analysis

Stuart Mitchell

Fresh analysis published by responsible investment NGO ShareAction has exposed low-ambition and incoherent climate targets at Europe’s 20 largest banks. This means banks are unlikely to succeed in shifting enough financing away from fossil fuels and toward renewable power, green infrastructure and technologies at the speed and scale needed to prevent a dangerously heated world. The research, which analysed both targets for reducing emissions from financing activities and targets for increasing sustainable finance, found that overall banks’ decarbonisation targets are too narrow, their sustainable finance targets are not rooted in…

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Investors urged to strengthen approach to protect key areas for biodiversity conservation

Stuart Mitchell

ShareAction, the responsible investment charity, and UN Environment Programme World Conservation Monitoring Centre (UNEP-WCMC), have launched a new report setting out how investors should strengthen their approach to protect some of the world’s most important biodiversity-rich areas. The guidance highlights the critical role investors need to play to help halt and reverse biodiversity loss through their investment policies, capital allocation and portfolio stewardship processes. The report focuses on the particular approach needed when investing in or near areas that have been designated as protected by governments, due to their rich…

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The climate impact of fertilisers – and ShareAction’s challenge to Europe’s biggest fertiliser company

Stuart Mitchell

ShareAction has worked with investors of Europe’s largest fertiliser company to trigger an important shareholder vote on whether the company should take stronger action to reduce its huge carbon emissions. But does fertiliser, the kind you’d use in flowerbeds and farmers spread on their crops, really have that much of an impact on climate change? And how could this vote – or ‘resolution’ – change anything? ‘Filing a resolution’ allows investors to escalate a particular issue to the company directors and other shareholders – who can all then vote on…

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ShareAction launches new series of guidance manuals to raise responsible investment best practice

Stuart Mitchell

ShareAction, the responsible investment charity, is today publishing the first in a series of guidance manuals that set out standards and expectations for responsible investment practices by asset managers across specific topics. This follows the launch last week of the charity’s ambitious new definition for responsible investment, which calls on institutional investors to take responsibility for the adverse real-world impacts of their investments on society and the environment. It describes four key principles for responsible investment: transparent, embedded consistently across all activities, considers negative and positive impacts on people and…

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