News From the Capital Markets
Investors and governments are increasingly pushing for more transparency regarding the non-financial impacts of business. GRI welcomes these developments, and seeks to support companies in understanding and applying policies that enable sustainable finance performance.
In this new series, GRI will share updates on the latest developments from capital markets in Europe and the world, and how it is interacting to promote and enable change.
Around the world
The World Federation of Exchanges has established sustainability as a priority for the coming year. In line with this, the Colombo Stock Exchange in Sri Lanka has launched its guidance, Communicating Sustainability: Six Recommendations for listed companies. Colombo Stock Exchange is also working together with GRI to support listed companies in their sustainability reporting efforts.
In Europe
On 31 January, the EU High-Level Expert Group on Sustainable Finance launched its final report with strategic recommendations “for a financial system that supports sustainable investment”. The report lays out ideas that can help sustainable development through informed capital allocation decisions. In related news, the European Commission launched its Action Plan on Sustainable Finance which, among others, establishes a taxonomy system for sustainable activities that will help create a common language when reporting, and introduces measures to clarify the duty of investors regarding sustainability. Eurosif also launched an update to the European SRI Transparency Code. This document will help guide asset managers to meet relevant SRI requirements for their products.
More local developments include the Luxembourg Stock Exchange launching a revised version of the X Principles of Corporate Governance to integrate mandatory disclosure of company CSR commitments. This means that companies incorporated under Luxembourgish law and listed on the regulated market will, from now on, have to disclose CSR policies. All other listed companies can do so on a voluntary basis.
At GRI
GRI provided feedback on the European Commission’s Fitness check on public reporting by companies. In this document, GRI presents some proposals to increase the suitability of the current reporting framework and ensure its continued relevance.
Interested in finding out more about GRI's engagement in the investor and capital markets space? Click here for an overview. For more updates from GRI, subscribe to the monthly newsletter.
