EMIA Notes - March 27, 2023

1. Tax Transparency Issues and Their Impact on Extractive Companies (Extractive Industries Program Webinar) Tuesday, March 28, 10 am EDT / 3 pm BST

2. Decarbonisation of Steel and Cement: Challenges and the Way Forward (Carbon Transition Initiative Program Webinar) Thursday, March 30, 10 am EDT / 3 pm BST

3. The New World Bank ESG Data Portal - How to Understand Indicators About Health, Education and Human Rights in a Broader Socio-Economic Context (Health, Education, and Human Rights Program) Monday, April 3, 11 am EDT / 4 pm BST

4. Old Mutual Investment Group’s Approach to their Domestic Market Net Zero Targets (ESG Initiative Webinar) Tuesday, April 18, 10 am EDT / 3 pm BST

1. Volunteer Opportunities

Profit shifting and tax avoidance schemes carry significant legal, regulatory, and public image risks for companies and investors. It is often not easy to get a full picture based on aggregate taxes paid as shown in financial reports, even if a company reports its payments to governments (which only some businesses do comprehensively). Public country-by-country reporting would require companies to publicly list information on business activities, employees, revenues, profits, and tax on a jurisdiction-by-jurisdiction basis. Do you think this breakdown would be useful to analysts and investment managers?

The Extractive Industries Program is maintaining its focus on corporate governance with our next webinar on transparency of taxes. Oxfam and the FACT Coalition are engaging with companies in the oil & gas sector and beyond to urge them to publish a GRI-aligned tax transparency report with public country-by-country reporting (PCbCR). They have had some success with large multinational players, and engagement with EM companies and banks is also on the rise. 

Daniel Mulé from Oxfam America, Sebastien Akbik from the Principles for Responsible Investment, and John Keenan from the Financial Accountability and Corporate Transparency (FACT) Coalition will discuss the importance of this aspect of corporate governance, share details on the evolving landscape of regulation and tax transparency disclosures, and offer some valuable investor recommendations and calls for action. 
 
Speakers:

Daniel Mulé, Policy Lead, Extractive Industries Tax and Transparency, Oxfam America
 
Sebastien Akbik, Corporate Governance Analyst, Principles for Responsible Investment (PRI)

John Keenan, Corporate Governance Analyst for Capital Strategies for the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME, member of FACT Coalition)

Nadine Cavusoglu, Director of the Agriculture Program, EMIA (moderator).

The Carbon Transition Initiative invites you to our next event dedicated to decarbonisation of the steel and cement industries. Experts from the Climate Bonds Initiative will talk about the challenges and opportunities that are specific to the production of these materials, and about the parameters of these companies’ transition plans that investors should pay attention to.


Steel and cement have a number of similarities. Making both of these materials requires large amounts of energy. Most methods used in their production processes emit significant volumes of CO2. The situation is exacerbated by expected growth in demand for these materials for decades to come because they are used in infrastructure and residential construction. This construction is likely to take place in developing countries on a large scale and over a long-term horizon. Our speakers will provide an overview of the most crucial aspects of decarbonisation of steel and cement and answer any questions you may have.



Introduction:

Pavel Laberko, CFA, Director, Carbon Transition Initiative, EMIA

Speakers:

Fabio Passaro, Transition Policy Analyst, Climate Bonds Initiative

Fabiana Contreras, Senior Sustainability Analyst, Climate Bonds Initiative

Paul Vermaak, Head of Standards, Climate Bonds Initiative

Fabrizio Palmucci, Senior Advisor, Climate Bonds Initiative (moderator)

How can investors put indicators regarding health, education, and other human rights into a country’s broader socio-economic context and get a better understanding of their meaning?  

The World Bank’s Sovereign ESG Data Portal (BETA) framework has enjoyed wide adoption in the industry and is one of the most used datasets for sovereign ESG. They updated and added more functionality to the data portal recently. The new version has 40 additional indicators and includes measures that give context to the ESG indicators.
 
EMIA will host a webinar together with the World Bank to help investors understand and use the new framework. The webinar will concentrate on the new indicators for Economic and Social Rights that relate to health and education. We will explore how different indicators relate to other indicators and how to put them into the broader socio economic context of the country.  This can help identify specific countries’ vulnerabilities and suggest corrective measures to reduce these vulnerabilities.

Speakers:
Bryan Gurhy, Senior Financial Sector Specialist, World Bank

Dieter Wang, Sustainable Finance Specialist, World Bank

Uwe Schillhorn, Director, Health, Education, and Human Rights Program, EMIA (moderator)

There is a significant challenge when looking at decarbonizing a portfolio in the context of a small, carbon heavy market. But domestic investors need and want to remain invested.  


Waleed Hendricks and Safiya Karjiker from Old Mutual Investment Group will explore how Old Mutual looks at its net zero targets and commitments within a South African equity market context and the unique benchmark work they are in the process of developing to help address the challenges in South Africa that might be applicable to other emerging markets.


Speakers:

Waleed Hendricks, Head of Quantitative ESG Research, Old Mutual Investment Group

Safiya Karjiker, ESG Analyst, Old Mutual Investment Group
 
Claire Meier Underhill, Head, Memberships & Partnerships, EMIA (moderator)

The Emerging Markets Investors Alliance could not function without its many volunteers who contribute their skills to our future. If you want to be part of our project, please send us an email at applicants@emia.org including your resume/ or LinkedIn profile, and mentioning "Volunteer Opportunities" in the subject line.

The Emerging Markets Investors Alliance (EMIA) is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization whose mission is to enable institutional investors to use the power of their collective capital and voices to advocate for a more sustainable future. EMIA "Programs" are activities that bring together investors, policy experts, and governments or companies for the purpose of improving ESG best practice adoption. EMIA Programs focus on sovereigns (e.g., Government Debt and Fiscal Governance Program, Sovereign Decarbonization) and on sectors (e.g., Agricultural Program, Extractive Industries, Financials Program and Telecom, Media, and Technology Program).