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ESG discussions continue to evolve As publishers of bothCorporate Secretary and IR Magazine, we relish the opportunity to bring our two audiences together to hear different perspectives and stories of effective collaboration on ESG integration. This was in evidence at the ESG Integration Forum – Summer 2020, held virtually on July 29. The event looked at how Covid-19 has shone a spotlight on human capital management issues and how it will fundamentally change off-season engagement this year, in terms of both the meeting venues and the focus of the conversations. We also looked at the outcomes from this year’s proxy…

Jessica McDougall is a vice president at BlackRock Investment Stewardship and Corporate Governance. She talks to Corporate Secretary sister publication IR Magazine about her preferences for engagement – both during proxy season and off-season – and ESG reporting How large is the stewardship team at BlackRock? It’s about 45 individuals across the globe. We have three regions: Americas, EMEA and Asia-Pacific. How long have you worked for the firm? I joined right at the beginning of 2017. Which sectors do you focus on? I cover industrials and materials in the US and Canada. I cover approximately 800 companies in those…

This week’s governance, compliance and risk-management stories from around the web – According to Reuters, a victory for Joe Biden in the US presidential election would signal the end of a period during which the banking industry has enjoyed more than $40 billion in regulatory cuts. But the industry is likely to keep many of these wins as Democrats prioritize more pandemic aid, healthcare, tax reform and financial rules that address racial injustice, environmental and inequality issues rather than attacking banks, said lobbyists and policy experts in Democratic circles. ‘A hypothetical Biden administration will be confronting an economy mired in…

Advises on including sustainability in corporate governance, disclosure and strategy Ceres on Wednesday launched a framework for what it hopes will be a decade of efforts by companies to make sustainability a central component of their business. The Ceres Roadmap 2030 details steps it says companies need to take – starting now and continuing over the next 10 years – to tackle the climate crisis, defend natural resources such as water, and create a just and inclusive economy. The aim is to guide companies on building sustainability considerations into all aspects of their business such as corporate governance, disclosures and…

Bridget Realmuto LaPerla and Travis Whitmore explore whether stock lending is at odds with the ESG focus of long-term investors In early December 2019 the Japanese Government Pension Investment Fund announced that it had ‘decided to suspend stock lending until further notice.’ This is one example of a growing number of asset owners evaluating their securities lending practices due to ESG concerns as long-term investors. Concerns have been raised that short-sellers (borrowers) could potentially undermine long-term stewardship efforts by mispricing or not considering ESG characteristics. The immediate impact of these events on the world’s lending supply was limited. For context,…