Today in Davos Switzerland at the World Economic Forum, the UNEP Finance Initiative will launch a two-tier “reporting and disclosure package” to assist financial institutions boost their sustainability reporting and disclosure activities.

The launch will take place at a function hosted by UNEP FI member company Innovest Strategic Value Advisors (ISVA).  UNEP Executive Director Achim Steiner, Nobel Laureate Economist Joseph Stiglitz, investor and philanthropist George Soros, and Lord Nicholas Stern, author of the Stern report and Senior Advisor on climate change to HSBC Chairman, Sir Stephen Green will be on hand for the launch.

The “Reporting and Disclosure Package” for financial institutions will include: 

• The joint UNEP FI/Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) financial services sector reporting supplement approved by the GRI Board in October 2008. The report came after five years of work which started in 2003. A multi-stakeholder group, including UNEP FI member institutions from across banking, insurance and investment sectors, worked to create the global sustainability reporting standard for financial service institutions. 
• The second component of the package will be a new report “Understanding Corporate Sustainability Disclosure Requests”, prepared by UNEP FI’s North American Task Force.

“At a time when we are looking for a greater degree of transparency from our financial institutions it is vital that there is commonly-agreed guidance on what that disclosure should look like. The Financial Services Sector Supplement assists by explaining how firms can measure and disclose key data on the sustainability of their investments, products and services.”

Sean Gilbert, Global Reporting Initiative

 Matthew Kiernan, Chief Executive of Innovest commented: “Stronger reporting and disclosure tailored explicitly for capital markets will act to hard-wire ESG issues into the market system as it remakes itself post the crisis. UNEP FI’s work with GRI and the North American Task Force (NATF) report is important as a foundation point. We still have to work harder to ensure key parts of the financial and capital market architecture use ESG data and information.”

To download the GRI FSSS and the NATF report, please click here: http://www.unepfi.org/events/
2009/davos/index.html

Source: United Nations Environment Programme