Hermes demand, Aviva stock exchange on sustainability reporting

 Aviva plc (AV /) and Hermes Asset Management Ltd. urge grants to improve the way companies report on sustainability, leading to calls from investors to establish common international standards.

They are non-governmental groups at a UN forum in Rio de Janeiro will be linked to opportunities to make emphasis on the financial industry in the long term problems such as environmental degradation and discuss energy efficiency.

Organizations seeking to standardize and improve the sustainability reporting, which originated the use of water-emission according to different rules on global stock markets over the past decade. Today's meeting is the talks with Rio 20 summit this week in the same city, where delegates from 190 countries discussed measures to eradicate poverty while resulting environmental degradation.

"We want the world to start their financial capital in the right direction," said David Pitt-Watson, Hermes Management and a senior adviser to Deloitte Consulting. "We say, let us a friendly regime with comparable data. Most people say it's obvious when you understand it."

Stock exchange in Sao Paulo, Copenhagen, Johannesburg and Singapore have already begun to require Members to any significant environmental risks, social, governance and reporting in a manner that would allow investors to make comparisons. Others still need to make to such requests.
Five scholarships

Two of them, in Sao Paulo and Johannesburg, today announced with Nasdaq OMX Group Inc. (NDAQ) (NDAQ) and New York stock exchanges in Istanbul, Turkey and Egypt, its listed companies for 4600 to promote moderation and report on environmental and governance issues as emissions of greenhouse gas emissions, water consumption and the equality of the sexes.

"The problem with some of the sustainability reports is that they are not really material, and they are not as relevant as they should be," said David Blood, co-founder of Generation Investment Management with former U.S. Vice President Al Gore. Companies must work harder to "make the material and make it relevant," he said in an interview.

Institutional investors have pushed for better standards in the reports, since they consider a broader range of issues affecting the quality of their investments.
Social Metrics

The efforts of companies, sectors and all major accounting and tax advisors, the performance measures on environmental, social and governance, or ESG to reinvent the show to challenge. Although some indicators, such as emissions or water use, are easier to standardize, are social measures, such as disk or diversity in the workforce or community relations to judge difficult.

The stock markets provide a forum for investors and companies to negotiate these issues. The change makes everything possible framework for the world the way public companies report to the potentially important.

"We expect companies commitments to make to improve their reporting on renewable energy and sustainability goals," said Jacob Scherr, director of global strategy and advocacy at the Natural Resources Defense Council in Washington, who will attend today's meeting.

The most important stock exchange in Brazil, Bovespa, has a policy issued in January recommended that listed companies to explain, explain the ESG data, and if not, why not. This month he announced the first results of its "report or explain" project, the sustainability analysis information to the end of May.
Denmark Compliance

The Copenhagen Stock Exchange, NASDAQ OMX owned by, a "comply or explain" principle of transparency, corporate governance, according to spokesman Javier Lopez. "There is a demand that the government until early 1100 is companies that needed to be documented social responsibility," he said.

Aviva suffered the UK's largest insurer, Munich Re and other investors have been working with the UN to achieve on the stock exchanges campaign, a global reporting requirements.

The initiative will help investors assess the sustainability efforts of a company on an "apples to apples" basis, Abengoa SA (ABG) CEO Manuel Sanchez Ortega said in an interview with the New York Stock Exchange. (NYX) (NYX) "If you're a system in the world, it is very important," he said.

While in Europe, South Africa and Brazil require the efforts of more reports, have led to the replacement demand of the United States have no plans of companies to report risks associated with climate change, consumption of water or the diversity in the workplace .
No mandates

"We have no mandates for our listed companies in terms of sustainability reporting," said Rich Adamonis, a spokesman for the New York Stock Exchange. "We have no position to do so."

According to London-based Aviva is the NYSE in the majority, with 57 percent of world trade is no advice to companies on sustainability reporting.

Meanwhile, the voluntary declaration on sustainable development with increased measures of investor demand. Signatory companies to the Global Compact of the UN sponsored jumped by 54 percent last year, more than 7000th The organization is the world's largest voluntary campaign to introduce standards on sustainability issues.

U.S. companies operating in areas that require sustainability reporting requirements and more complicated than they receive back face, said Hermes-Pitt-Watson.

"Unless we get the framework developed in Rio, it is extremely expensive and take much longer to complete a voluntary," said Pitt-Watson. "There will be hundreds of different regulations."