Business & Human Rights Resource Centre, together with the European Responsible Investment Network (ERIN), Frank Bold, Global Witness, and the Investor Alliance for Human Rights, organised a webinar on 19 November 2020 as part of the ERIN annual conference:

Towards an EU framework for responsible business conduct, including responsible investment: Linking the sustainable finance, corporate disclosure and mandatory due diligence agendas

Since the publication of the EU Action Plan for Financing Sustainable Growth, financial actors are increasingly called upon to integrate environmental, social and governance (ESG) criteria into their investment strategies. This has been accompanied by new EU regulation as well as overhaul of existing rules on investor disclosure and corporate non-financial reporting. While disclosure on ESG issues aides responsible investment decisions, as well as corporate transparency, reporting alone has proven insufficient to mitigate negative impacts and provide remedy. This is what mandatory due diligence covering all sectors including finance seeks to address in practice, and the EU Commission has just launched a legislative initiative including mandatory corporate due diligence.

This online talk brought together experts from business, civil society and the public sector, in order to address:

• Synergies between and key elements linking the EU sustainable finance, corporate disclosure and mandatory corporate due diligence agendas, and how to get these elements right to steer effective practice
• Responsibilities and leverage of financial actors regarding responsible business conduct

Speakers:

• Margaret Wachenfeld (panel moderation), Themis Research / Institute for Human Rights and Business
• Filip Gregor (overview), Frank Bold / European Coalition for Corporate Justice (ECCJ) Steering Group
• Tom Dodd, European Commission (DG FISMA)
• Signe Andreasen Lysgaard, Danish Institute for Human Rights / EU Sustainable Finance Platform
• Théo Jaekel, Ericsson
• Barbara Bijelic, OECD Responsible Business Conduct Unit
• Tom Tayler, Aviva Investors
• Rachel Owens (panel moderation), Global Witness
• David M. Schilling (impulse), Investor Alliance for Human Rights
• Caroline Rees, Shift
• Nikolaj Pedersen, UN Principles for Responsible Investment (UNPRI)
• Júlia Mello Neiva, Conectas
• Felicitas Weber, Business & Human Rights Resource Centre
• Peter Webster, EIRIS Foundation
• Andreas Jacobs (closing remarks), Chair of the Council Working Party for Development Cooperation (CODEV), Permanent Representation of Germany to the EU

With kind support from Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH