Members of the B Corp, which includes wealth management businesses such as EQ Investors, Coutts and Tribe Impact Capital, have launched a campaign calling for tighter and deeper corporate governance frameworks within the finance industry.
Holding similar aspirations to the Campaign for Better Governance run by ESG Clarity and other Bonhill titles, The B Corp Finance Coalition UK is asking firms to commit to higher levels of stakeholder accountability in order to effect lasting change across the sector on climate and societal issues, and meet the targets of the Paris Agreement.
Eleven founding members of the Coalition, which also includes Triodos Bank, WHEB Asset Management and Snowball, have all amended their Articles of Association to ensure stakeholder alignment becomes part of their directors’ duties. They note while capital flows are increasingly being directed towards sustainable businesses, and there is a huge focus on improvement of disclosure and data, the “missing ingredient” is a change in corporate governance within the investment industry to ensure they are meeting broader stakeholder needs.
The CEOs and founders of the 11 groups that have signed up have offered to share approaches, best practice and learnings with senior management teams and boards wanting to respond to the call for change.
Sophie Kennedy (pictured), CEO at EQ Investors, and ESG Clarity panellist, commented: “Tackling the world’s greatest challenges requires change at the top now. Only with the right governance structures can ambitions such as net zero realistically be delivered. Collaboration with peers and competitors alike has led to a Coalition breaking new ground to drive this common goal.”
Amy Clarke, co-founder at Tribe Impact Capital and also an ESG Clarity panellist, added: “Changes in fundamental corporate governance hold the key to profound systemic change. What we are proposing could be considered the glue that binds the work of the UN SDGs, TCFD, SBTI, IFRS Foundation (and many more) together to ensure purpose and stakeholder outcomes are core to our businesses and that directors duties are automatically tethered to the purpose outlined in our constitutions.”
The 11 founding firms are:
EQ Investors – current co-chair: Louisiana Salge, senior sustainability specialist
Montanaro Asset Management – current co-chair: Ed Heaven, head of sustainable investment
Tribe Impact Capital
Coutts
Arisaig Partners
Bridges Fund Management
Habito
Mustard Seed
Snowball
Triodos Bank
WHEB Asset Management
