Social impact, the Sustainable Development Goals and Integrated Reporting

by Carol A Adams Main points: Asset managers, Baillie Gifford, and asset owners, Cbus Superannuation Fund are seeking to report contribution to the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) Measuring and managing social impact and contribution to the SDGs is not only compatible with earning long term returns, but essential to it Developing a strategy to […]

UK Green Finance Inquiry report concludes climate change risk reporting should be mandatory

by Carol A Adams Main points: Pension fund Trustees have a Fiduciary Duty to consider long term financial risks of climate change There’s a lack of regulatory mechanisms in place to ensure climate change risks are incorporated into investment decisions Recommendations of the Taskforce on Climate related Financial Disclosures (TCFD) should be mandatory and enforced […]

Pension funds adopt strikingly different approaches to climate change risk

by Carol Adams Pension funds invest for the long term and scientists have concluded that climate change poses a significant risk to all aspects of life, including water, food and energy security.  The implications for business are significant and yet investor and corporate action does not match this known impact of climate change and other […]

UK Green Finance Inquiry report released

by Carol A Adams Main points: Green investment levels have declined and are insufficient to meet legally binding carbon reduction targets Green bonds, carbon pricing, policy certainty and maintaining links with Europe are part of the solution Recommendations on increasing climate related financial disclosures under consideration The UK Government’s cross-party Environmental Audit Committee has today […]

Responsible investing and the Sustainable Development Goals

By Carol A Adams As institutional investors try to work out what the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) or Global Goals mean for them and how they fit with their work on the Principles for Responsible Investment (PRI) and Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) issues, companies are starting to link the SDGs with their corporate strategy. […]

Transformative change towards sustainability: the interaction between organisational discourses and organisational practices

by Venkateshwaran Narayanan and  Carol A Adams This paper adopts a case study approach to explore the complex process of organisational change towards greater social and environmental sustainability. The case study of a major global financial services organisation involved interviews and examination of company documents, and their website over the period 2000-2014. The rare longitudinal empirical evidence […]

Banks’ non-financial reporting compared: Which one would you work for? Or buy shares in?

By Carol Adams As non-financial reporting increases in volume and importance to a range of stakeholders, it becomes an important part of any Corporate Reporting course.  Approx. 260 MSc Finance and MSc Accounting students at Durham University Business School were asked to review the non-financial reporting of three banks, HSBC, RBS Group and Standard Bank […]

Cbus superannuation fund: Annual Integrated Report 2016

By Carol A Adams Cbus superannuation fund (known as a pension fund in some countries) has just released its Annual Integrated Report 2016. The report is Cbus’s second attempt at integrated reporting and the first in which it has referred to the report as an ‘integrated report’. The 2016 report provides a clearer articulation of […]

Exploring the implications of integrated reporting for social investment (disclosures)

by Carol A. Adams, Brad Potter Prakash J. Singh and Jodi York The purpose of this study is to examine the evolution of corporate reporting on social investment activities in the context of a global move toward integrated reporting approaches. The paper adopts both a conceptual and content analysis approach to examining the reports of four multi-national corporations – […]

The changing portrayal of the employment of women in British banks’ and retail companies’ corporate annual reports

by Carol A Adams and George Harte This paper examines disclosure with respect to gender and employment in the corporate annual reports of major British banking and retail companies during the period 1935-1993. Setting the disclosures in the social, political and economic context of six distinct periods, the authors suggest that the position of women […]