SfC Summer Meeting 2024
On June 6th and 7th, the members of Shareholders for Change gathered at the headquarters of Ethos Foundation in Geneva for our annual summer meeting. During these two days we welcomed for the first time EB – Sustainable Investment Management (EB-SIM) as a new ordinary member and Fondazione Cariplo as our first supporting member.
Day 1
On the first day, representatives of three of the most important rating agencies – Moody’s, MSCI, Morningstar – joined us to present their assessment process of companies involved in ESG incidents, in particular, regarding reinsurance companies. During the meeting, SfC members asked for clarification on the Swiss Re case. The engagement with the companies was positive and will continue throughout the year.
After this very intensive engagement, Rafel Forsetto from the World Economic Forum joined us. Rafael presented the Investor Policy Dialogue on Deforestation (IPDD), a policy engagement campaign on deforestation in which Ethos and the members of the Ethos Engagement Pool International have been participating since 2022. We appreciated the activities of IPDD and shared with Rafael the engagement project on the Amazon forest carried out by other SfC members. We look forward to working together!
Finally, some of our members presented potential new collaborative engagement projects and the results of some of the engagements started last year.
Day 2
On the second day Alix Roy, ESG Analyst at our French member Ecofi, was elected as Vice-President, taking over from Alix Ditisheim (Phitrust), whom we thank for her commitment to fostering cooperation between SfC members and to strengthening our network.
Further space was also dedicated to proposing collaborative engagement and new impactful projects to address new orphan issues and the issues we care about most: human and worker rights, global health and nutrition, climate and environment, tax transparency.
Moreover, we also had the opportunity to discuss the role of investors in financing the arms industry thanks to James Niven, Chief Operations and Programmes Officer at the Global Alliance for Banking Values (GABV). After introducing the GABV, James presented the Milan Declaration, a statement calling on the financial industry to stop financing the production and trade of weapons and arms.
The meeting served as a platform for updates and fruitful exchanges among our members. It was an important moment to share ideas for new in-house research and new network-driven engagement. Stay tuned for updates on our members’ activities!