Guidance for financial services institutions on what to include in annual sustainability reports has been finalized by the Global Reporting Initiative.
The Financial Services Supplement complements the GRI’s main guidelines with advice for banking, insurance and asset management firms.
The document suggests that financial services institutions should, among other things, report on the percentage and number of companies in their portfolios with which they have ‘interacted on environmental or social issues’, state the percentage of assets subject to ethical screening, and outline voting policies applied to environmental or social issues for shares they hold.
The supplement was produced with assistance from rating agencies, non-governmental organizations and financial institutions, including Bank of America, Bank of China, Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank, Rabobank, Standard Chartered and Westpac. Work on the document started in 2003, when the GRI and the United Nations Environment Programme began drafting and pilot-testing it.
