Norway’s wealth fund will this year push the 9,200 firms it invests in to provide more and better data about their social and environmental impact and to do so regularly and in a standardized way. The world’s largest fund, worth $1.1 trillion, was an early mover on corporate sustainability, addressing issues such as child labor and water consumption more than a decade ago. As a broad fund invested in so many multinational firms, the fund has been keen to get access to non-financial data so that it can measure so-called “externalities” - how the impact of the activity of one company can affect the activity of another. The fund said corporate sustainability reporting should use established standards, starting with disclosures based on the Global Reporting Initiative Standards and Sustainability Accounting Standards Boards that are specific to a company’s industry.
- Reuters -