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Newsletter

Source: Governance & Accountability Institute

Sustainability-Highlights-Header
July 9, 2014

SERVICES  |  RESEARCH  |  EVENTS  |  WEBINARS  |  BLOG  |  ARCHIVE

Check It Out...


G&A Institute Sustainability Update
Informative, insightful, thought provoking
The Governance & Accountability Instituteblog focusing on the sustainable world evolving daily before our eyes.  Read it, absorb it, question it and challenge.
G&A's Sustainability Update
Insights & perspectives for your sustainable journey...

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Sustainability & Corporate Responsibility Reporting

G&A Institute is the Global Reporting
Initiative's (GRI
) sole data partner for the United States of America, the United Kingdom, and the Republic of Ireland. As the data partner we monitor, analyze and database information on all Sustainability reports issued in these territories. For a list of recently issued Sustainability reports please follow the links below:

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Featured Events

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Governance & Accountability Institute Service Highlight

Many Reasons to Contact
Governance & Accountability Institute. Is this one yours?

G&A's Awards & Recognitions Program
http://www.ga-institute.com/uploads/pics/Awards.jpg Your corporate sustainability journey may have begun. Or, the journey may be far along, maturing – and the story being told through the GRI sustainability report. Who is taking notice? Who is recognizing the company's reporting effort (the progress report for corporate achievements), and bestowing recognition? Which of the many “best of” lists, and ratings, rankings, scores ,and other third party judgments is your company being included in – where are you positioned in the race to the top?Learn more About G&A's Awards & Recognitions Program

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Governance & Accountability Institute Research Reports


Learn more @ G&A!

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Corporate ESG Performance Factors & SustainabilityHQ

Corporate ESG Performance Factors are important to financial analysts, asset owners and managers, and many stakeholders.  The ESG framework or approach considers environmental issues and impacts, the company’s positioning and actions on social/societal issues, and important aspects of corporate governance.

ESG key performance indicators are considered by investors as proxies for effective governance and management. Increasing numbers of of independent research and financial analysis firms monitor and measure these and advisie investors.  The Sustainability HQ™ platform is an important profiling and monitoring resource for the G&A team, and for our clients and subscribers.

ESG market players and corporate reputation influencers are profiled and monitored by G&A Institute. In these Highlights we provide some results of our continuous global scanning for ESG, sustainability and corporate responsibility news. The Associated Profiles indicated are in our platforms.  For more information, please email us at info@sustainabilityhq.com
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For more on:
ESG & Sustainability Players
- Shaping Perceptions, Valuations & Decision-Making

Sovereign Wealth Funds (SWFs)
- State-Owned Global Investors

US Public Sector Investors 
- State and Municipal Retirement Funds

Asset Managers
- Investors adopting ESG guidelines / policies & shaping market trends

Navigating the way to sustainability...
Contents © 2009 - 2014 | All Rights Reserved
Copyrights for other providers are noted where appropriate. Please credit the source if quoted.
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Purveyors of Leading ESG Disclosure & Reporting Frameworks Gather Under a Big Tent to Discuss “Alignment”

Tune in to the Corporate Reporting Dialogue – whether you are an investor, or company manager, or stakeholder with interest in corporate disclosure and structured reporting.  The dialogue was launched last week at the annual International Corporate Governance Network (ICGN) conference – where a group of prominent organizations that exert varying degrees of influence on the world’s public and private companies (and social institutions) by mandating, suggesting and requesting that managers look to their framework or standard for their ESG disclosure and reporting.

Compliance with some of the standards of the organizations that gathered are mandatory (FASB, IASB for public company financial reporting); others are voluntary for the most part (the GRI for corporate and institutional sustainability reporting); some are voluntary leaning toward the mandatory (SASB for sustainability accounting in the USA); some have created a norm that public companies ignore at their peril (CDP for water, carbon and supply chain disclosure).

Each (and all) of the standards, frameworks, approaches, of these organizations impact on corporate valuation and corporate reputation.  Tune in and follow the new CRD – details are here for you in our Top Story this week and in our Sustainability Update blog post:

Tune In to the Corporate Reporting Dialogue — An Initiative That Will Impact Investors, Corporate Reporters and Stakeholders
Monday, 07. July 2014 | By Hank Boerner, Chairman – G&A Institute

Top Story of the Week

GRI PART OF JOINT INITIATIVE ON CORPORATE REPORTING
(Sunday - July 06, 2014)
Source: Global Reporting Initiative - The Corporate Reporting Dialogue (CRD) was officially launched at the ICGN (International Corporate Governance Network) Annual Conference in Amsterdam on 17 June 2014. It brings together organizations – including GRI – that have...

Sustainability in Focus

10 things you need to know about sustainable agriculture
(Thursday - July 03, 2014) Associated Profiles : World Resources Institute
Source: theguardian.com - Richard Waite, associate, Food, Forests and Water Program, World Resources Institute explains: "By intensifying agriculture on existing land and protecting the remaining forests, we can eliminate...

Ford and the Sustainability of the Family Legacy
(Thursday - July 03, 2014)
Source: Triple Pundit - My grandfather worked as a plant manager at Ford Motor Co. for 34 years. When I ask him about his experience, he does not refer to Ford as a company, but as a family. Since his retirement, Ford has remained an important part of...

The Culture of Environmentalism and Sustainability
(Wednesday - July 02, 2014)
Source: Huff Post - Those under 30 favor environmental protection over economic growth by 60% to 30%. In contrast, those over 65 years old favor economic growth over environmental protection by 50% to 39%. Since there is no evidence that someone...

Leveraging sustainability through supplier relationship management
(Tuesday - July 01, 2014) Associated Profiles : Jantzi-Sustainalytics, Sustainalytics
Source: Strategic Sourceror - Ceres and Sustainalytics conducted a 2014 survey of 613 publicly traded enterprises in the United States, discovering that more companies are developing standards for their suppliers to follow....

Does Sustainability Mean Anything Anymore? Lessons From Pfizer, Alcoa and Alcatel-Lucent
(Tuesday - July 01, 2014)
Source: Forbes - Does anyone remember the sustainability timebomb? Cast your mind back to a world before 2008 when, we were told, the way that modern capitalism had functioned in its 200-odd years since industrialization just wasn’t going to be...

How do you demonstrate a 'sustainability premium' to investors
(Friday - June 27, 2014) 
Source: GreenBiz - More companies are translating their sustainability efforts into revenue and productivity. But for the most part, investors don't understand or even know about the shareholder value that sustainability initiatives can create....  

Global banks see new investment opportunity in sustainability 
(Thursday - June 26, 2014) 
Source: Reuters - The world’s largest bank (Industrial & Commercial Bank of China), along with 20 plus other global banking and financial institutions are meeting here in Nairobi to help build the framework for an estimated $2.5 trillion annual...  

Investors Continue A Quiet March Towards Sustainability As Essential To Financials
(Thursday - June 26, 2014) 
Source: Forbes - Today sees the launch of provisional standards for industries in the Non-Renewable resources sector by the Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB). It provides sustainability accounting standards for use by publicly... 

Why sustainability leadership requires advocacy
(Wednesday - June 25, 2014) 
Source: Green Biz - The continued downward slide of government leadership in driving the sustainability agenda forward, coupled with lackluster policy and advocacy engagement from the private sector, is the inconvenient truth revealed in this year’s... 

3 Ways Brands Can Make Sustainability Work for Them
(Tuesday - June 24, 2014) 
Source: Triple Pundit - At Forum for the Future, we believe all brands have the potential to be the solution, rather than the problem, when it comes to creating serious change. We also believe that brands could flourish in a sustainable economy...

Sustainability Should Be at the Center of Corporate Governance: UNEP Report 
(Monday - June 23, 2014) 
Source: Just Means - A new model of governance for sustainability seeks to identify corporate governance practices that can effectively bring about a culture of sustainability within business organizations. In an integrated system of governance,... 

ESG Issues & Players

American Apparel: Sex, Power and Terrible Corporate Governance
(Thursday - July 03, 2014)
Source: Business Ethics - The American Apparel story gets crazier by the moment. Actions taken by the company’s board two weeks ago to attempt to remove founder Dov Charney as chairman and CEO have prompted him to pull out all the stops to return to...

Poll: 53% Of Americans Don’t Believe In Man-Made Global Warming
(Friday - June 27, 2014) 
Source: Daily Caller - President Obama is emphasizing global warming ahead of the November elections, but a new poll suggests he faces an uphill climb. According to a Pew Research Center poll, 35 percent of Americans say there is not enough solid... 

5 Dire Warnings From Bipartisan Report on Climate Change's Economic Impact
(Wednesday - June 25, 2014) 
Source: National Geographic - A Tuesday report warning of dire economic consequences from climate change, from lost property to ruined crops, is the latest in a string of bipartisan efforts aimed at garnering public support to tackle the problem.

Corporate governance: the resurgent activist
(Monday - June 23, 2014) 
Source: Ft.com - The US Chamber of Commerce calls it “minoritarianism, the tyranny of a minority”. Dan Gallagher of the Securities and Exchange Commission says annual meetings have been “hijacked” by “corporate gadflies”. Leo Strine, the chief... 

Asset Managers, US Pension Funds, Sovereign Wealth Funds

Investment fund 'regrets' Israel boycott move
(Wednesday - July 02, 2014) Associated Profiles : PGGM – Asset Managers for Pension Funds
Source: Jewish Chronicle - A Dutch fund manager has told the Financial Times that senior executives at Netherlands pension fund PGGM wish it had not pulled funds from Israel's five top banks earlier this year...

New Mexico public employee pension fund returns 15%
(Wednesday - July 02, 2014) Associated Profiles : New Mexico Public Employees Retirement Association (PERA)
Source: The Republic - New Mexico's pension fund for state and local government workers has reached a high of $14.5 billion in assets because of strong investment performance. Officials of the Public...

Market Structure Map - The Risk
(Friday - June 27, 2014) 
Source: Tim Quast, President, ModernNetworks IR LLC - On a hot Sunday 138 years ago today, Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer rode into the valley Native Americans called the Greasy Grass. The rest is history. Speaking of unexpected defeat, wonder what ambush caused... 

"Cluster Of Central Banks" Have Secretly Invested $29 Trillion In The Market
(Monday - June 16, 2014) Associated Profiles : State Administration of Foreign Exchange (SAFE) Investment Company (China) 
Source:  forexfactory.com – China’s State Administration of Foreign Exchange has become the world’s largest public sector holder of equities, according to officials, and we suspect the Fed is close... 

Massachusetts going to divest from fossil fuels'
(Friday - June 27, 2014) Associated Profiles : Pension Reserves Investment Management Board (Massachusetts)Massachusetts Pension Reserves Investment Management Board Profile 
Source:  Tree Hugger - Last month, 3 Massachusetts towns committed to divesting from fossil fuels in the space of ten days. In total, nine municipalities in the state have voted to move their money away from old-school energy sources, and... 

Watching the Watchers

Saving Water Partnership

Headquarters: Seattle, Washington
Established: 2000

KEY PARTNERS
Coalition composed of 19 water districts and utilities in Seattle and King County, State of Washington (USA).

OVERVIEW/MISSION
The Saving Water Partnership is a local initiative in Seattle and King County, Washington, that works to create water conservation programs.

BACKGROUND
The Saving Water Partnership is composed of 19 water utilities, including Seattle Public Utilities, in Seattle and King County, State of Washington. The partnership's initial intention was to encourage water conservation of one percent (1%) each year for 10 years, with the goal of reducing water consumption enough that demand at the end of the program’s decade would not exceed demand at the start of the program.

News Sweeps
Marin Water Officials Join North Bay Drought Campaign
(Friday - June 27, 2014) Associated Profiles :Saving Water Partnership 
- San Rafael Patch - The Sonoma-Marin Saving Water Partnership will use local and regional publications in the North Bay, radio stations and online media to educate the public about outdoor water conservation tips.... 

City Council to eye water deal cost; City manager, mayor issue joint statement
(Thursday - June 12, 2014) Associated Profiles :Saving Water Partnership 
- San Angelo Standard-Times - SAN ANGELO, Texas â UPDATE 09/17/2013: A "Joint statement on West Texas Water Partnership from City Manager Daniel Valenzuela, Mayor Dwain Morrison" has been released to the public. Click here...  

State approves water flow reduction out of Lake Mendocino
(Thursday - June 12, 2014) Associated Profiles :Saving Water Partnership 
- Sonoma County Gazette - Through the Sonoma-Marin Saving Water Partnership, the cities and water districts that buy water from the Water Agency will let residents and businesses know about the importance of... 

SustainabilityHQ Highlights is prepared by the Governance & Accountability Institute, Inc. based on continuous monitoring of trends and developments in Sustainability and ESG. The SustainabilityHQ platform is available by subscription.

Governance & Accountability Instiute is the “Sustainability Headquarters™” for clients in the corporate, investment, public and social sectors.  The G&A team provides research, monitoring, advisory and strategic information resources to clients in the corporate, investment, public and social sectors.The G&A services portfolio includes:ESG Counseling, Strategies & Benchmarking | Competitive Benchmarking |
Sustainability Coaching, Team Building & Training | Corporate Sustainability & Responsibility Reporting | ESG & CR Issues Monitoring & Research | Stakeholder Identification, Monitoring & Engagement | Awards & Recognitions Program | External Assurance

SustainabilityHQ™ is managed and published by Governance & Accountability Institute, Inc.
For more information, contact us at:
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