Sustainability Community

Investors changing Nike's strategy – this is a good example for ESG shareholder activism.

This time investors urge the company to backpay Cambodian and Thai workers ahead of AGM. Nike is asking its shareholders to reject the resolution. Over 4,000 garment workers are reportedly owed US2.2 million in wages.  

Here's a director's guide to shareholder activism from PWC which i thought could be interesting too.

Do you have an experience in engaging with shareholders or communicating with activists  - it would be interesting to hear from you. How does this impact company's valuations and portfolio?

PWC Paper is helpful in making directors concious of their responsibility to respond to the company owners best interests as a whole.  Interesting it is light on ESG beyond the governance issue.  They do reference an ESG link to bankruptcies in the US 90%Share of S&P 500 "bankruptcies over 10 years involved companies with poor ESG ratings" Source: "ESG Matters-US: 10 Reasons You Should Care About ESG," Bank of America Merrill Lynch, September 2019.

There is now growing societal and shareholder pressure to make disclosures.  For larger companies TCFD will become mandatory and TNFD now has a voluntary framework being made available.  At the sametime there are increasing numbers of studies trying to identify shareholder value of ESG practices.

Does anyone know of a good body of studies and thoughtful reviews?  This area is a minefield as complexity of factors and context in value outcomes can be very specific and difficult to demonstrate against robust criticism. 

Should shareholders be asking larger companies reporting on TCFD to also adopt voluntary reporting on TCND to create more holistic and robust sustainability reporting at least among large companies and improve directors focus on a wider set of sustainability issues while establishing long term Net Zero alignment plans?

I feel a LinkedIn poll coming on....