Principles of Responsible Investing
The UN-backed PRI is probably the leading global network for responsible investment. Despite the growth in membership across the region, the dominance of South African signatories underlines that work needs to be done to expand membership in other African countries.
PRI signatories |
Asset Owners |
Investment managers |
| Botswana | 1 | |
| Mauritius | 5 | |
| Namibia | 1 | |
| Nigeria | 1 | |
| South Africa | 7 | 36 |
| Total | 8 | 43 |
Source: www.unpri.org [June 2017]
UN Global Compact
The UNGC supports the creation of a “sustainable and inclusive global economy” by encouraging companies to align themselves with Ten Principles on human rights, labour, environment and anti-corruption.
Participants include representatives from over 40 sub-Saharan African countries.
Sustainable Stock Exchanges Initiative
The SSE Initiative is a platform that explores how stock exchanges can improve corporate transparency and performance on ESG issues and support sustainable investment. Partner exchanges make voluntary commitments to improving sustainability in their markets. Partner exchanges in the region are:
Botswana – Botswana Stock Exchange
Kenya – Nairobi Securities Exchange
Mauritius – Stock Exchange of Mauritius
Namibia – Namibia Stock Exchange
Nigeria – Nigerian Stock Exchange
Rwanda – Rwandan Stock Exchange
Seychelles – Trop-X
South Africa – Johannesburg Stock Exchange
Tanzania – Dar es Salaam Stock Exchange (DSE)
Zimbabwe – Zimbabwe Stock Exchange
Western Africa – BVRM
The International Integrated Reporting Council (IIRC)
The IIRC promotes integrated reporting, which aims to show the link between a company’s financial performance and its wider social, environmental and economic context.
The IIRC has a working group in South Africa.
Global Reporting Initiative (GRI)
The GRI “promotes the use of sustainability reporting as a way for organizations to become more sustainable and contribute to sustainable development.” A sustainability report discloses a company’s environmental and social performance and its governance framework. Along with integrated reports, a sustainability report is the starting point for responsible investors wanting to better understand the link between a company’s strategy and its sustainability. However, concerns have been raised around the integrity and reliability of sustainability reporting by listed companies.
The GRI’s Africa hub, located in Johannesburg, extends to South Africa, Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya and Mauritius.
Companies using the GRI framework can be found here.
Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP)
The CDP works with companies to measure and disclose their environmental information, including climate change and water data, and with institutional investors to assess the risk of these factors in their portfolios.