Browsing: <a href="/tag/investor-activity">Investor activity</a> <i class="grey">•</i> <a href="/tag/good-practice-how-to">Good practice, how to</a>

BHP Billiton has returned to the ranks of the Dow Jones Sustainability World Index, while Telstra is no longer classed as a regional sustainability leader.

Banks can be 'agents of change' and environmental regulators can help them better manage risk in their dealings with clients, according to WA EPA chair Paul Vogel.

Assisted by senior regulators, a new association of bankers and investors plans to develop finance industry guidelines to ensure lenders properly scrutinise the environmental credentials of projects seeking funding.

NAB is co-founding a global initiative to ensure banks and businesses properly value ecosystem services in their decision-making, accounting and reporting.

Banks don't have the right to refuse credit to legitimate businesses on environmental grounds but there are plenty of other options, says NAB chief financial officer Mark Joiner.

Three Australian banks are listed in a new global carbon performance leadership index prepared by the prestigious Carbon Disclosure Project, while a regional report due out in November will detail how the ASX200 and NZ50 are faring.

CE Daily trawls through Carbon Disclosure Project responses, released in New York overnight, and looks at how Australian companies are gearing up for the new climate policy regime. Plus, which companies responded – including Boral, AMP and News Corporation – and which didn't – including Nufarm, St George Bank and Fairfax.

There is still a tendency to indulge in 'trophy cabinet' reporting on sustainability and climate change, despite dramatic improvements in the quality of reporting, says Colonial First State's Amanda McCluskey.



Meanwhile, the Carbon Disclosure Project sets out best practice measures to encourage supply chain reporting of emissions and carbon strategies.