[1] This is impact corporates and the not for profit sector alike. NFPs are accessing returnable and donation based capital for social missions and individual and institutional investors alike are looking at the ESG impacts of organisations they invest in to mitigate harm and encourage more sustainable practices.
[2] There is also a broad recognition that 'shareholder primacy' or the shareholder value maximisation philosophy as the sole corporate purpose is not the ultimate corporate aim and that truly sustainable organisations build loyalty and capability through delighting customers and employees. Milton Friedman's 1970's mantra that businesses only social responsibility is to make profits has been superseded by organisations taking leadership roles and seeking to build stronger communities and bringing 'purpose' and 'meaning' back into the heart or core strategy of their enterprises. See the Accenture and Sears stories as great examples. See also RL Martin's Fixing the Game and the critique of the shareholder maximisation theory
[3] Social impact or benefit bonds enable governments to procure innovative social solutions and NFPs to monetise those services, providing access to capital to provide and expand their models. There are currently 10 SIBs in the market, dealing with recidivism, mental health, out of home care, restoring families, homelessness etc – seeking to combine financial return and social impact. The Commonwealth Government announced a $30M package in its most recent budget to facilitate and develop this market. It has also set up a $100M Try, Test & Learn Fund to encourage innovative approaches to tackling social problems.
[4] Funds under management in SRI as at 31 December 2001 were under $2 billion - Ali, Paul and Gold, Martin L., An Appraisal of Socially Responsible Investments and Implications for Trustees and Other Investment Fiduciaries (June 2002). U of Melbourne, Public Law Research Paper No. 32. Available at SSRN. The Ethical Investment Association which became the Responsible Investment Association Australasia (RIAA) reported SRI at $14 billion in 2002, rising to $21.3 billion in June 2003. By December 2015, RIAA reported total AUM at $633 billion, $581 billion in broad ESG and $51.5 billion in core funds (at 31.12.2016- $557 billion broad and $65 billion core). See RIAA Responsible Investment Benchmark Report 2017. Similar trends can be seen in philanthropy, with a move away from donations to impact investing – see "Philanthropy 50", AFR Magazine 28 April 2017.
[5] See ABC News report, 'Ethical' investment funds outperforming mainstream counterparts: study and RIAA Benchmark Report 2017. This logic also extends to the business level, where businesses with a clear purpose outperform. See findings from Firms of Endearment by R. Sisodia referred to in EY Beacon's https://betterworkingworld.ey.com/purpose/why-business-must-harneess-the-power-of –purpose and http://www.ey.com/gl/en/issues/ey-beacon-institute-the-business-case-for-purpose. The research points to companies operating with a clear and driving sense of purpose outperforming S&P500 by a factor of 14 between 1993 and 2013.
[6] Principles of Responsible Investment (PRI) is an investor initiative involving over 1,400 investor signatories in more than 50 countries (managing assets in excess of US$60 trillion) in partnership with the United Nations Environment Programme Finance Initiative (itself a coalition of the UNEP and over 200 financial institutions) and the UN Global Compact.
[7] The TCFD released in December 2016 and finalised in June 2017 sets out a voluntary framework for reporting financial implications of physical and economic transactions risks (and opportunities) associated with climate change and calls for sensitivity analysis and modelling around the 2°C Scenario and associated transition risks and opportunities.
[1] Paris Agreement Art 2 para 1(c) with a current target of US$100 billion pa earmarked to be mobilised for climate finance and a target reset in 2020 and US$90 trillion to be mobilised by 2030 to help build low emission, climate resilient economies (Brookings Inst). The UNEP's Finance Initiative – Principles for Positive Impact Finance released on 30 January 2017 by 19 leading global banks (including Westpac) estimates US$5-7 pa investment to help meet UN SDGs by 2030. Green sovereign bonds have been “the talk of 2017”, the Climate Bond Institute (CBI) reported on 18 September 2017, and are increasingly seen as a tool to help governments implement infrastructure plans in line with their commitments under the Paris Agreement on climate change. Labelled issues continue to meet strong investor demand, the CBI noted, with “oversubscription being the norm”. An extreme example was France’s sovereign bond in January which was upsized to €7 billion from €3 billion after receiving orders of more than €20 billion. See https://www.environmental-finance.com/search/search-results.html
[8] Climate Bonds Initiative is an international, investor-focused not-for-profit working solely on mobilising the US$100 trillion bond market for climate change solutions. Its July 2016 5th Annual State of the Market Report references the US$694 billion green and climate aligned bond market, with US$120 billion labelled green bonds and notes the proposed 10 fold increase in climate smart investments by 2020 (page 2). Australian issues accounted for 30% of global bond issuance in Q1 2017, with CEFC playing a key role as cornerstone investor in many of those issues.
[9] Social impact bonds have now been issued in NSW, South Australia, Queensland and Victoria over the past few years, establishing programs to tackle out of home care, recidivism, homelessness, mental health, drug and alcohol and other social issues. The broader social impact market is over $4 billion, growing at over 10% with a number of dedicated impact investment funds and community finance from both dedicated providers and the big 4 banks.
[10] Ali & Gold (p4) note the diversification benefits to investment portfolios from alternative asset classes, such as SRI funds, with returns less strongly correlated to the performance of conventional equity investments.
[11] See Governance Institute of Australia discussion paper by Judith Fox – "Shareholder primacy: Is there a need for change?", December 2014 for a summary of the issues and law reform recommendations. The concept of "Shareholder primacy" is not legislated, it is a norm – the current scope of the law allows boards to have regard to other stakeholders (customers, employees, society more broadly etc), as well as its purpose and to take a longer term view of what is in the company's best interests. There is growing evidence that a focus on customers, rather than shareholders should be the primary goal and, in fact, drives better long term outcomes for shareholders.
[12] See opinion by Mr Noel Hutley SC and Mr Sebastian Hartford Davis, 7 October 2016, briefed by MinterEllison. Freshfields, UK published the seminal paper on Fiduciary Duty in 2005 and Sarah Barker, MinterEllison and others recently published Climate change and the fiduciary duties of pension fund trustees – lessons from the Australian law, 14 August 2016
[13] Sarah Barker and Maged Girgis, MinterEllison Alerts note physical impact and economic transition risks are financial in nature.
[14] Commonwealth Bank faces legal action over failure to disclose climate change risk in report
[15] Responsible investment is promoted by PRI, which was established in 2006 as an investor initiative and partnership with UNEP Finance Initiative and UN Global Compact representing asset managers managing over US$25 trillion – BlackRock managing in excess of US$5 trillion AUM in its most recent annual letter to CEOs highlighted its approach to climate change risk governance and its expectations of its investee board
[16] See How BlackRock Investment Stewardship engages on climate risk – March 2017
[17] Social enterprise, community interest corporations, B Corps and other business for purpose models continue to evolve and there is calls on lawmakers to create legal structures which sit between the for profit (company limited by shares) and not-for-profit (company limited by guarantee to promote mission or purpose based organisations. Interesting and market leading models, like Adara Partners, which is a boutique investment bank created by Audette Exel with Australia's leading bankers and corporate advisors generating fees on corporate advisory mandates that are donated to the Adara international development aid platform is but one great example. The shared value movement originating out of the Michael E Porter and Mark R Kramer report in the Harvard Business Review (Jan 2011) has inspired these approaches and promotes innovation and cross sector collaboration around a broader conception of value creation - see https://hbr.org/2011/01/the-big-idea-creating-shared-value – B Corps. See also EY Beacon's the business case for purpose on strategy and metrics
[18] See Thomas Friedman's recent book – Thanks for Being Late – An Optimists Guide to Thriving in the Age of Accelerations https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/22/books/review/thomas-friedman-thank-you-for-being-late.html
[19] Consider, for instance, the CBA shareholder "first strike" against its executive remuneration report in 2016 due to a perception that he proposed culture and engagement metrics were too soft and the subsequent cultural issues that have since emerged and have been the subject to recent media and regulatory comment
[20] National Capital Protocol, ISO GHG Protocols, Climate Disclosure Standards Board, Sustainability Accounting Standards Board,, Green Bond Principles and the TCFD are all examples of the work being done in this area to create management and external accounting and reporting frameworks that can accommodate climate related risk, value and disclosures. The TCFD has called on bodies to reconcile and rationalise these frameworks
[21] See the Natural Capital Protocol, which sets out a framework for understanding the use of natural capital in an organisations value chain – both pre and post-sale
[22] Organisations like Sparks, Social Traders and Social Ventures Australia, as well as the big accounting firms provide consulting services in relation to impact measurement frameworks, whilst software providers such as Socialsuite have developed useful software to establish metrics and measurement systems.
[23] One critique of Natural Capital as a concept is assigning a 'value' to nature that looks dangerously like a 'price' which promotes the treatment of the environment as an 'ecosystem service' or commodity to be captured as natural capital in national and company accounts and to be exploited for market growth. This approach whilst introducing a pricing and rationing mechanism may continue to place unsustainable burdens on the earth's ecological boundaries. Doughnut Economics – 7 ways to think like a 21st Century Economist, p439.,
[24] Christina Figueres and colleagues in Nature International weekly journal of science (28 June 2017) look at the Paris Agreement commitments, the 'carbon budget' and achieving peak carbon with a road map for turning the tide of the world's carbon dioxide by 2020 to meet the 2050 neutrality goal.
[25] Spratt & Dunlop in What Lies Beneath, Breakthrough Publishing, September 2017 put the case that current processes will not deliver either the speed or extent of change required to meet the ecological challenge, whilst Kate Raworth in the Doughnut Economics – 7 ways to think like a 21st Century Economist, runs through the competing schools of thought as to whether the transition to sustainability (restoring ecological in a socially just manner) can occur within the confines of the present GDP growth focussed economic model or more fundamental structural changes to the economy, society and political processes are required to enable ecological sustainability.
[26] The views expressed in this article are the personal views of the author. Current as at 24 October 2017.
