Research

Global food systems are facing the challenge of meeting growing demand driven by population, economic, and urbanisation growth in a world where the threat posed by climate risks and extreme weather hazards is increasingly significant.

With this video, the First Sentier MUFG Sustainable Investment Institute launches its Food Systems series, focusing on environmental and social challenges linked to global food value chains and measures that investors and the wider stakeholder community can take to meet those challenges.

This report, produced by Pensions for Purpose, focuses on asset owners’ approaches to integrating nature and biodiversity into their sustainability priorities, governance frameworks, resource capacity, reporting, and asset manager expectations, as well as data-related challenges.

In this video, FSI MUFG Sustainable Investment Institute introduces the evolving concept of children’s rights and their relevance to business and investors.

Modern slavery impacts every country, region, company and supply chain in the world, with almost 50 million people estimated to be living in modern slavery globally. As business and investors may be exposed to modern slavery and forced labour through their operations or supply chains, they are increasingly expected to assess and address modern slavery risks and provide or enable remediation of modern slavery cases in their operations and investments. 

Discover the global concerns surrounding PFAS chemicals, their adverse health and environmental impacts, regulatory actions, growing litigation risks, and new opportunities for waste management and environmental testing services. Explore the comprehensive report for more insights.

This report builds on the themes of the ‘Why Nature’ video to explore what is presently being disclosed, measured and assessed by companies, highlighting good practices and identifying gaps and challenges in order to provide investors with useful information that can be used in company engagement. The report analyses disclosure of 16 companies, two from each of the TNFD priority sectors, selected based on high environmental performance and/or ratings according to existing benchmarks or providers and geographic location by head office.

Stakeholders including regulators, investors and companies have extended considerable efforts to advance gender diversity in the workplace. Other aspects of diversity (including equity and inclusion) and their business benefits are often less well understood.

We present key DEI considerations related to ethnicity, sexual orientation, socioeconomic background, disability and neurodivergence, and analyse intersections of these characteristics, equipping investors with knowledge necessary to assess potential risks in portfolio companies and drive best practices, through engagement. Newer DEI reporting frameworks, which may increase both data availability and materiality over time, are analysed. The study is accompanied by an overview of DEI practices in Japan and their demographic context.

The ecosystem services provided by nature have declined faster in the last fifty years, creating some serious and rapidly growing risks for companies and their investors due to our dependencies on nature. The recent release of the Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures (TNFD) framework) underscores the importance of this topic to the financial industry. 

The last two decades have been marked by an increasing emphasis on the role of investor engagement in influencing investee companies to deliver changed outcomes.  Based on the academic literature insights , company survey and interview results, this report offers recommendations shareholders could adopt to ensure that their engagements are more likely to drive meaningful change in companies’ behaviour, strategy and policy.

All businesses have a responsibility to respect human rights, which means that investors and corporates should seek to avoid harming peoples’ human rights and address any harm that does occur (such as modern slavery) in line with international standards.

In September 2022, the Government of Japan published Guidelines on Respecting Human Rights in Responsible Supply Chains (Due Diligence Guidelines), based on the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights. This Guidance Note aims to support businesses operating in, or with interests in Japan, to understand and apply the Japanese Government’s Due Diligence Guidelines. 

The UN Sustainable Development Goals (the SDGs) are the centrepiece of global efforts to address development challenges and to promote a sustainable future. To date, the progress on achieving the SDGs has been limited by the availability of capital.

This reports clarifies the current state of play in efforts made to achieve the SDGs and the existing financing gap, and then reviews the role institutional investors can play in closing this gap.

The growing popularity of sustainable investments has spurred an increasing volume of of regulatory responses globally - from monitoring market developments to new regulations and guidelines.

As investors navigate an ever changing regulatory landscape, it is helpful to take a step back and reflect on the purpose and intentions of the various regulatory activities.

The rapid evolution of sustainable investment has presented governance challenges for fund boards. Our report identifies those challenges and provides suggestions on how to strengthen expertise and governance to maintain investor confidence, particularly against a backdrop of greenwashing concerns.

The report includes findings from interviews with 25 fund board directors across six jurisdictions – the UK, Ireland, Luxembourg, Japan, Hong Kong and Australia. 

Approximately 0.5-4.3 million metric tonnes of synthetic and natural microfibres could enter the environment every year and the total amount of microfibres in the oceans is currently thought to exceed 1.5 trillion tonnes. Microfibres have been found in the deep ocean, on beaches, in rivers, and in the atmosphere. They have also been found in animals, plants and in our food. 

Microfibre presence in the environment is a concern for environmental health in part because they can be consumed by organisms. Not only does this cause gut blockages, but the chemicals in textiles, which are often added to enhance the properties of both synthetic and natural textiles, can be absorbed by the animals consuming them.

The global release of microplastics into the ocean is estimated to be between 0.8 and 2.5 million tonnes per year, which would fill roughly 66,000-200,000 average-sized refuse collection trucks. Microplastics pose a potential hazard to human health largely through dietary exposure.

While there is growing understanding of the causes of microplastic pollution, this topic has not received the same level of attention from policymakers, companies, or investors as have comparable issues such as marine macroplastic pollution and waste management.