Aviva Buyers will broaden its definition of sustainable investments this 12 months to incorporate biodiversity and human rights so corporations take into account the “entire image of sustainability.”
Bonuses awarded to firm executives must also mirror how effectively sustainability targets have been met, Chairman Mark Versey wrote in his annual letter to 1,500 corporations in 30 nations.
Firms by which the asset supervisor has invested ought to ship tangible and clear progress on a wider definition of sustainability this 12 months, together with human rights and biodversity, he stated.
“Merely reducing emissions however permitting the destruction of the rain forest to proceed will do little to reverse world warming,” Vasey stated.
“Firms must undertake an built-in strategy for max profit.”
The subsidiary of insurance coverage group Aviva manages 262 billion kilos ($354.62 billion) of belongings and can now rank biodiversity and human rights alongside local weather and government pay when it selects investments.
“We count on all companies to develop local weather transition plans, and firms in higher-impact sectors ought to current these for shareholder approval,” Versey stated.
Firms ought to start making voluntary disclosures primarily based on climate-related requirements being drawn up by the brand new Worldwide Sustainability Requirements Board, which was launched on the COP26 world summit final November, he added.
“We acknowledge the usual continues to be to be totally developed and would assist a phased strategy to reporting, with full compliance by 2024,” Versey stated.
Firm government bonus plans ought to embrace “sturdy, stretching and externally validated sustainability targets” which might be clearly linked to business technique, he added.
Final June AXA Funding Managers stated it was increasing its palm oil funding technique to exclude corporations concerned in main land use controversies or in inflicting biodiversity loss because of soy, cattle and timber.
($1 = 0.7388 kilos) (Reporting by Huw Jones; modifying by Carolyn Cohn and David Goodman)
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