Pensions and Capital Stewardship Project
Conference Presentation Materials
Long-Term Investment Decisions:
Assessing the Sustainability Risks of Labor and Human Rights
and Other Workplace Factors- March 2009
[Agenda | PDF]
[Resource Book - Table of Contents and Selected Readings | PDF]
[Conference Summary | PDF]
BENCHMARKING LHR INVESTMENT RISK -
How should investors describe labor and human rights portfolio risk,
particularly with respect to global supply chains? What data has been
available so far, what are its limitations, and what other potential sources
of information might there be? What are the prospects for obtaining
independently audited LHR statements, analogous to corporate financial
statements?
LINKS TO CORPORATE PERFORMANCE -
What do we know about the relationship between LHR factors and corporate
performance and portfolio returns? To what extent are they linked with
reputation risk? Operational risk? In light of the foregoing, which
information would be most valuable to gather and which analyses most
important to do?
HUMAN RESOURCES AND HUMAN CAPITAL - More data is available about issues such as workforce skills, turnover, team production systems, employee ownership, and health and safety. But
corporate reporting remains opaque here, too. To what extent have studies
demonstrated the materiality of these factors to corporate and portfolio
performance? Is there enough evidence to warrant the inclusion in
mainstream investment analysis? What other data needs to be collected and
what other studies should be done?
SHAREHOLDER DECISION-MAKING AND ENGAGEMENT - In what ways have investors already begun to include workplace/LHR
issues in portfolio analyses? How have they engaged companies on these
subjects, and with what result? How have the data and criteria now
available aided or limited such efforts? Do these efforts themselves yield
valuable data?
