New publications

Climate change publications

• Carbon Trust launches new report on the EU Emissions Trading Scheme
• The report looks at the lessons learnt from Phase 1 of the EU ETS and implications for the future.
• Latest report from IPCC states that tackling climate change will cost 3% of global GDP
• This latest report from the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) contains both good and bad news, if global warming is to be kept between 2.0 and 2.4 degrees Celsius.

Sustainability rankings/indices

• EIRIS to establish rating services for ethical funds
• Ethical Investment Research Services (Eiris), the leading global provider of independent research into the social, environmental and ethical performance of companies, launched a new rating service for ethical funds in April 2007.
• New study on sustainability of German companies
• The study, called ‘Sustainably Successful?’ and funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research, analyses the sustainability of 28 German companies, using the Sustainable value approach. The triple bottom line performance was expressed as a single monetary figure.
• Covalence publishes first quarterly ranking of ethical reputation
• The ranking gives details of the highest ranked companies, those that have made most progress and an overview of ‘hot topics’ across different sectors.
• European oil and gas companies outperforming their US counterparts on social and environmental issues, according to FTSE data
• US oil and gas companies account for 9% of the FTSE US Index (by industry weighting) but just 0.1% of the FTSE4Good US Index. European oil and gas, by contrast, have the same industry index but account for 10.6% of the FTSE4Good Europe index.

Sustainability reporting publications

• More US companies reporting on environmental, social and governance performance
• The research, carried out by KLD Research and Analytics and Social Investment Research Analysts Network (SIRAN), found that half of the companies studied in the S&P 100 Index produced ESG reports, 11 for the first, in the period June 2006 to December 2006.
• KPMG published advisory note on the impact of the UK Companies Act on corporate responsibility reporting
• The note outlines the requirements of the Companies Act and how companies can start to integrate them into their current corporate responsibility reporting practices.
• Corporate truth - the limits of transparency
• This book, written by Adrian Henriques (Professor of Accountability, Middlesex University Business School), looks at the debate behind transparency. It explores what ‘transparency’ entails, the basis for expecting it of companies, and the limits which may apply to adopting it.