In connection with its
instructing institutional investors on how to develop a climate change proxy voting & engagement policy, ISS launched a scorecard-based
Custom Climate Voting Service for investors that uses ISS ESG’s purportedly unique climate data and proprietary research and draws on widely recognized frameworks like the TCFD. It also announced its intent to include an “ISS Climate Awareness Scorecard” – which reportedly “distills and harmonizes publicly available data and ISS proprietary analysis on a company’s climate change-related disclosures, practices, and performance record, including its industry risk group” - in select ISS proxy voting/research reports in the future.
The move comes on the heels of ISS’s inclusion in its
annual benchmark policy survey (reported on
here) of a series of questions relating to companies addressing and reporting on climate change risk, which include - as one of a number of potential responsive actions - investors voting against directors on boards of companies “assessed to be not effectively reporting on or addressing its climate change risk.” In its post, ISS suggests that voting against directors and other like actions on “regular ballot items” may be “necessary” for investors to express their views on climate change issues in most cases due to the relative dearth of climate change-specific shareholder proposals. The Society plans to comment on the survey.
This post first appeared in the weekly Society Alert!