DBS Joins an Alliance to Promote Impact Reporting Standards

BY  
Seneca ESG  
- July 7, 2021

Four financial firms including UBS , Singapore’s DBS , Denmark’s Danske Bank , and Amsterdam-based ABN AMRO Bank issued a joint press release on June 30 with Harvard Business School’s Impact-Weighted Accounts Initiative (IWAI) and the Impact Institute, announcing that they would ally to adopt new impact-reporting standards, as reported by Reuters later that day. The new alliance, named Banking for Impact (BFI), aims to create a new reporting system that captures the environmental and social externalities not reflected in traditional financial reporting rules.

According to BFI’s vision paper, the group recognized banks and financial institutions as the pivotal drivers in the transition to the impact economy. The paper identified four key steps to impact measurement and valuation (IMV) as quantification, valuation, attribution, and aggregation. It also drew conclusions from pioneering research results that showed the inconsistency and limitations of current CSR and ESG reporting frameworks, which served as the basis for BFI’s call for a standardized and value-based reporting rule.

Other research efforts have led up to the group’s establishment. Harvard Business School launched the IWAI in 2019 as a pilot to investigate the valuation of companies’ environmental and social impacts. The pilot’s early participants include BlackRock and Calvert, an investment management company owned by Eaton Vance . The pilot researched over 1,800 companies and found a significant relationship between negative environmental impacts and lower stock prices. This provided a compelling business case for green business practices as well as accurate IMV.

IWAI was not the first attempt to translate environmental impacts into monetary values. Kering , a French luxury group, priced its negative environmental impacts at EUR524m (USD638m) in its 2019 annual report. The food company Danone also reported carbon-adjusted earnings per share (EPS) in addition to the normal EPS. In 2019, the company recorded a 12% increase YoY of its carbon-adjusted EPS as opposed to an 8% increase of the normal EPS, based on an estimated carbon cost of USD35 per ton.

Sources:

https://www.reuters.com/business/sustainable-business/ubs-joins-peers-track-how-lending-affects-environment-jobs-2021-06-30/

https://www.reuters.com/business/sustainable-business/insight-putting-green-greenback-esg-investors-target-corporate-accounts-2020-12-18/

https://bankingforimpact.org/

https://bankingforimpact.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/Media-Release-Banking-for-Impact.pdf

https://bankingforimpact.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/BFI-Vision-paper-June-2021.pdf

지금 바로 Seneca ESG 툴킷 사용 시작하기

포트폴리오의 ESG 성과를 모니터링하고, 나만의 ESG 프레임워크를 만들며, 더 나은 비즈니스 의사결정을 내리세요.

Toolkit

Seneca ESG

관심 있으신가요? 지금 문의하세요

문의하려면 오른쪽 폼을 작성하시거나 아래 이메일 주소로 연락 주십시오.

sales@senecaesg.com

싱가포르 지사

7 Straits View, Marina One East Tower, #05-01, Singapore 018936

+(65) 6223 8888

바르셀로나 지사

Carrer de la Tapineria, 10

Ciutat Vella, 08002, Barcelona, Spain

+34 612 22 79 06

타이베이 지사

77 Dunhua South Road, 7F Section 2, Da'an District Taipei City, Taiwan 106414

(+886) 02 2706 2108

리마 지사

Av. Santo Toribio 143,

San Isidro, Lima, Peru, 15073

(+51) 951 722 377