Special Focus

Strategic Governance - Enabling Financial, Environmental, and Social Sustainability

A new book by Hank Boerner and Mark Sickles of the Governance & Accountability Institute.  Click here for more information.

Introduction  to SustainabilityHQ™ -- this is Governance & Accountability Institute’s proprietary research and monitoring platform for following trends,  news, commentary, research and other critical information related to Sustainability and ESG factors (environmental & energy, social issues, corporate governance)  This platform is designed to the knowledge management headquarters for enterprise sustainability issues and topics.

The research and monitoring platform contains in-depth profiles and background information on key global capital market players and influentials (such as issue advocates) that are shaping capital market and societal trends, corporate reputations and valuations. Some are gatekeepers for access to capital and shape cost of capital for issuers. These are key players in the new normal of the capital markets.

Information and resources in SustainabilityHQ are organized by category – key ESG/Sustainability Players; SRI Asset Managers focusing on ESG; Public Sector Pension Funds; and Sovereign Investors (including SWFs – Sovereign Wealth Funds).  These categories are updated and expanded continuously.

ESG/Sustainability content is organized by topic and issues in focus, such as: ESG Influencers; Corporate Governance; Water Issues; Carbon Issues; ESG Stock Indexes; Food and Agriculture; Supply Chain Issues…and many more. G&A Institute customizes content for easy access for clients’ monitoring and information needs.

There are some sections and examples that we make available to the public as a service to our community and stakeholders.  Please follow the links along the left hand menu to browse these features and learn more about SustainabilityHQ. 

Dramatic changes are taking place in the global capital markets.  Changes that impact institutional investors.  Wall Street players.  Global financial capitals.  Corporate America.  Corporate Europe.  Companies in Asia and the Pacific Basin.  The expectations of new players, and the changing demands of established players are reshaping how investors look at companies.  Third party influencers are helping to shape corporate reputations and valuations and investors are basing their decisions on these key performance indicators.  These are issue and topic areas that are monitoring continuously by Governance & Accountability Institute. 

For more information about access and to receive our weekly SHQ Highlights email newsletter please click here.

Sovereign Wealth Fund Highlights

United States Public Pension Fund Highlights

Asset MGR Highlights

USA Sustainability and Corporate Responsibility Reporting

UK Sustainability and Corporate Responsibility Reporting

Ireland Sustainability and Corporate Responsibility Reporting

Report from Europe: Asset Managers Views

Investor sentiment remains healthy despite market volatility

Phoenix-IR tracks the opinions of European investors in order to help you follow their interest in U.S. equities over time.

During the last two weeks of October we researched the views of 82 leading institutions based in nine European countries (UK, Switzerland, France, Germany, Belgium, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands and Sweden) managing total assets in excess of $3,000 billion. The results show that Europeans see value in U.S. equities and have been buying on weakness.  The proportion of investors claiming to be overweight the U.S. market has risen to its highest point since September 2009.  An encouraging result for companies conducting European outreach.

There also have been some significant changes in sector preferences which might impact interest in your stock, more specifically.  For more detail on this, as well as the full survey results, please click here for summary results.

We hope this research provides you with some useful insights on the European market. There is also plenty of further information on our blog.

If you would like to see our previous market Barometers please click here.

"Our good friend Hank Boerner at Governance & Accountability Institute, Inc., has launched INSIGHTS-edge (now SustainabilityHQ^TM) ,an essential data platform for investor-relations officers, boards of directors and treasury departments in this brave new world of accountability and sustainability.

Times have changed.  Institutional investors in growing numbers heavily weight “sustainable” and environmental/social/governance (ESG) factors. That means IROs, boards, and corporate officers vested with meeting new measurement standards must be educated and informed differently. Hank’s team has compiled a simple, navigable, web-based treasure trove on sovereign wealth funds, pension funds and other asset managers with an estimated USD$8 trillion in assets.

INSIGHTS-edge (now SustainabilityHQ^TM) not only identifies these major forces but also provides a contemporary and continuously updated resource about ESG trends and developments shaping the money behind global business. A subscription shared by boards, treasuries and IR departments is rapidly becoming a necessity.  Look up INSIGHTS-edge (now.. SustainabilityHQ^TM) at www.SustainabilityHQ.com and test-drive it today."

Tim Quast
Managing Director 
ModernNetworks IR LLC
Software and service firm providing trading intelligence
Analytics to marquee US publicly-traded companies

"INSIGHTS-edge (Now SustainabilityHQ^TM) can be a powerful tool for ESG Investors and conventional  investors that are now adopting ESG and Sustainability policies and guidelines.  This includes both asset owners and managers"

Timothy Smith
Senior Vice President
Environment, Social & Governance Group
Walden Asset Management

"...I think it's a very good screening tool to (1) identify targeted buy side firms and (2) keep up to date on current news related issues that affect these targets.  In short, the database can provide excellent marketing functionality for active users in the institutional space (buy side as well as sell side)."

Frank Constantinople
Senior Investor Relations
and Relationship Management Executive

"With INSIGHTS-edge (now SustainabilityHQ^TM) you have succeeded in amassing an abundance of high caliber information that allows an Investor Relations Officer to easily access and gain an encyclopedic knowledge of the latest global investor issues, news and rulings; resources that are critical to success in this day and age."

Stephanie Moran Baldwin
Strategic Corporate Advocates
20 years of IR and PR management