London Stock Exchange Group (LSEG) announced the Green Economy Mark to support companies’ transition to low-carbon sustainable business models.
The Sustainable Finance & Investment Summit took place at the London Stock Exchange (LSE). The participants, which included Helen Mahy CBE, Chair of The Renewables Infrastructure Group Ltd and Non-Executive Director at SSE plc, Russell Picot, Chair of the HSBC UK Pension Fund and Special Advisor at TCFD, Sarah Breeden, Executive Director for International Banks Supervision at the Bank of England, and Timothy Mohin, CEO at Global Reporting Initiative, discussed the environmental issues in industrial production, among other topics.
During the Summit, leaders of public companies and financial experts also spoke about the investment risks driven by climate change, as well as the pre-requisites for future sustainable economic growth. The Summit also included masterclasses on matters related to environmental, social and corporate governance.
At the event, Robert Barnes, CEO of Turquoise & Global Head of Primary Markets, LSEG, said: “The Green Economy Mark recognises a growing number of companies that are addressing new markets for green and sustainable solutions - form energy generation to food and agriculture. We applied FTSE Russell’s Green Revenues and Environmental Opportunities data to London issuers to identify companies and funds that make 50 percent or more of their revenues from environmental solutions. I’m pleased to say that today 74 issuers are in the initial cohort to receive the mark and they have a combined market cap of 55bn sterling… They are truly cross sector from manufacturing, transport, agriculture, chemicals and financials. By raising their visibility and profile, we hope to help investors see the breadth of the green economy and to identify issuers that they may not otherwise considered to be active in this space… We are privileged to be the only exchange in the world to be able to proved this visibility to investors and issuers alike.”
A delegation from the International Competence Centre for Education in Mining Engineering under the auspices of UNESCO also attended the Summit.
According to Viacheslav Zyrin, the head of the delegation of the Competence Centre under the auspices of UNESCO, “The Summit held by the London Stock Exchange was dedicated to the topic of responsible investing, which is becoming of paramount importance. Companies listed on the LSE are evaluated on the basis of a number of criteria, such as environmental safety, social responsibility, and management quality. Around 65% of the 100 largest companies across the world adopt these criteria. The companies’ market capitalisation is also affected by the level of competence of their staff, which forms the focus of the work carried out by the Competence Centre”.
It should be noted that the Summit was sponsored by Baker McKenzie LLP, an international law firm, IBM, the world’s largest hardware and software manufacturer, and Thoburns, a corporate communications firm.
As reported earlier this year, in April 2019 Vladimir Litvinenko, Chairman of the Board of Governors of the Competence Centre, and Robert Barnes, CEO of Turquoise and Global Head of Primary Markets at the LSEG, reached an agreement to work together to develop global standards for professional competence in minerals, mining and petroleum engineering.
