The collaboration aims to provide financial actors with the information they need to allocate more resources towards sustainable business
A new collaboration between the Principles for Responsible Investment (PRI) and the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD) is to work to enhance the exchange of sustainability information between corporations and investors in a bid to help businesses better report on their environmental, social, and governance (ESG) performance, the bodies announced today.
The organisations will facilitate dialogue between business and investors, supporting the creation of institutional links that will deliver and transfer sustainability information between them, they said.
The aim is to help businesses and investors align incentives, evaluation mechanisms, valuations, and decision-making processes with sustainability considerations related to resilience, impacts, and outcomes, with the goal of providing financial market actors with the impetus and information they need to allocate more capital towards sustainable business models, the bodies added.
"Our signatories continue to tell us that being able to access comparable and meaningful sustainability data is a roadblock to progress when it comes to responsible investment," said Fiona Reynolds, CEO of PRI. "Working with WBCSD will enable PRI to enhance several channels over which investors have influence, [such as] capital allocation and investors' engagement with companies.
"By collaborating we can further develop the tools and data needed for future decision-making and create the incentives and collective action at a scale that can significantly influence the capital costs of companies."
The collaboration aims to accelerate the growth in businesses reporting to investors on their ESG performance and support efforts to standardise disclosure regimes.
"We are working to redesign corporate and investor engagement and our organizations represent a powerful combination of those voices," said Peter Bakker, President and CEO of WBCSD. "We see this work as integral for aligning the financial system with the transformations needed to address the major social and environmental issues - like climate change and inequality."
The move comes just a day after the UK government unveiled proposed rules that would require large pension funds to enhance their disclosure of climate-related risks and opportunities in line with the recommendations of the Taskforce on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD).