ESG

EU Council Adopts Tax Reporting Rules

June 09, 2016

The EU's European Council has adopted rules proposed by the European Commission to require multinational companies to report their financial information on a country-by-country basis and mandating the automatic exchange of this information by EU member states in order to clamp down on corporate tax avoidance.
UNGC, GRI Sign Renewed Partnership on Sustainability

June 09, 2016

The UN Global Compact and the Global Reporting Initiative have signed a renewed memorandum of understanding that focuses on partnership between the organizations on pushing companies within their networks to implement and report their progress in advancing the UN Sustainable Development Goals.
Airline Association: Emissions Tax Will Cost Customers

June 08, 2016

International Air Transportation Association Director General Tony Tyler has confirmed that consumers will have to bear the costs of a decision the UN's International Civil Aviation Organization will likely make this fall to seek a tax on airlines to offset the greenhouse gas emissions of their airplanes.
GRI Creates Digital Reporting Platform

June 06, 2016

Seeking to provide an integrated system through which researchers can analyze the reporting of companies on their implementation of the UN's social and environmental goals, the Global Reporting Initiative has launched an initiative called the Digital Reporting Alliance that will form a platform for companies to file digital "sustainability" reports.
GRI Pressures Businesses on Array of SDG Promotion

June 03, 2016

At a plenary of the Global Reporting Initiative's Global Conference, speakers called on businesses and governments to support a vast array of initiatives to advance the UN Sustainable Development Goals and the global business and human rights agenda.
MEPs Approve Country-by-Country Tax Reporting

May 18, 2016

Members of the European Parliament have approved a proposal requiring corporations to report their financial information on a country-by-country basis in the EU as "a positive step in the fight against aggressive corporate tax planning" and called for the governments of EU members to give the European Commission access to the reported financial information.
NGOs Seek More Robust Minerals Reporting at OECD

May 13, 2016

A group of NGOs issued a statement for participants in a recent Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development forum on mineral supply chains calling on the OECD to ramp up monitoring of reporting on conflict minerals policies and on governments and businesses to adequately address human rights issues in their mineral supply chains.
S&P Threatens Bank Credit Downgrades for Climate Inaction

May 13, 2016

Website Climate Home reports that credit rating agency S&P has threatened to lower its rating of banks that fail to take into account the risks of climate change in their funding of fossil fuel and energy projects.
Norway Wealth Fund Pushes Energy Companies on Reporting

May 13, 2016

Reuters reports that the world's largest sovereign wealth fund Norges Bank has announced that it will vote for shareholder resolutions that would require oil and gas companies ExxonMobil and Chevron to publicly report how they are managing the risks of global warming to their operations.
UN Women's Rights Body Considers Swiss Financial Policies

May 11, 2016

A coalition of NGOs has successfully petitioned the UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women to seek information from the Government of Switzerland, as part of its review of the country, on the impacts of the government's financial disclosure policies on the realization of the rights of women in foreign countries.