Library | Sustainable Finance Practices

Governance and directors’ duties

Resources on the responsibilities of boards and directors in overseeing sustainability, ensuring accountability, fulfilling fiduciary duties, and promoting long-term value creation.

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Climate fiduciaries: part III – mind the model gap

The article explores how pension funds rely on imperfect climate models to assess financial risk and whether fiduciary duty requires deeper scrutiny of their assumptions. It highlights emerging legal challenges, model limitations, and the shift toward richer scenarios and climate narratives in investment decision-making.
Article
6 February 2026

Women’s equality in the workplace series

Equileap
This research series examines workplace gender equality across publicly listed companies using a consistent assessment framework. It evaluates corporate policies, practices, and disclosures related to gender balance, pay equity, leadership representation, and inclusion to support comparative analysis and responsible investment decision-making.
Benchmark/series
6 March 2025

Canadian pension climate report card series

Shift: Action for Pension Wealth and Planet Health
The Canadian Pension Climate Report Card is an annual benchmark series assessing how major Canadian pension funds manage climate-related risks and align investment and stewardship practices with climate science. It applies a consistent, comparative framework using publicly disclosed information to evaluate governance, targets, engagement and integration over time.
Benchmark/series
24 January 2026

Shift: Action for Pension Wealth and Planet Health

Finance / Corporate Focused NGOs & Think Tanks
Shift: Action for Pension Wealth and Planet Health is a Canadian non-profit advancing climate-aligned pension investing. It engages pension beneficiaries, publishes research such as the Canadian Pension Climate Report Card, and advocates for responsible investment, climate risk management, transparency, and long-term financial security across public retirement systems in Canada today.
Organisation
1 research item

Climate fiduciaries: part II – the duty of even-handedness

This article explores the fiduciary duty of even-handedness and its implications for climate-aware pension fund investing, focusing on emerging legal challenges in Australia and Canada. It argues that unmanaged climate risk may breach trustees’ obligations to act equitably across generations, particularly where younger members bear disproportionate long-term harm.
Article
28 January 2026

Directors’ duties navigator: Climate risk and sustainability disclosures series

Commonwealth Climate and Law Initiative
This is a series of legal and governance primers examining directors’ duties and corporate disclosure obligations in relation to climate and sustainability risks. It provides jurisdictional analysis and practical guidance to support board oversight, risk management and reporting as regulatory and market expectations evolve.
Benchmark/series
1 January 2026

Free Float Analytics

Free Float Analytics
Free Float Analytics provides a global dataset ranking board directors and management by influence and performance across publicly traded companies, using proprietary metrics drawn from social science and analytics. It supports institutional investors and advisors in evaluating governance dynamics and proxy decisions, without offering investment advice.
Online tool/database

Free Float Analytics

Commercial Research Providers
Free Float Analytics provides data-driven insights on corporate governance, board effectiveness, and director influence.It delivers independent research, metrics, and analytical tools supporting proxy voting, stewardship, and ESG analysis for investors, researchers, and governance professionals seeking transparent, comparable governance intelligence across global markets and listed companies using publicly available disclosures.
Organisation
1 research item

Climate fiduciaries: part I – the climate prisoner’s dilemma

This article explores how climate change is reshaping fiduciary duty for pension funds, through court cases, legal analysis, and the concept of systemic risk. It introduces the “climate prisoner’s dilemma,” arguing that climate-aware investment may be shifting from discretionary to obligatory for long-term fiduciaries.
Article
21 January 2026

Nature Enters the Boardroom: Why Directors Are Paying Attention

Drawing on Australia’s first national study of board-level engagement with nature, this article shows how directors are treating nature as a material governance and financial issue. It highlights how boards are extending climate governance systems to manage nature-related risks, adopt frameworks like TNFD, and build resilience and long-term value despite policy uncertainty.
Article
16 January 2026

Council on ethics for the norwegian government pension fund global

Council on Ethics for the Norwegian Government Pension Fund Global
The report outlines the Council on Ethics’ 2018 work advising Norges Bank on exclusions and observation under ethical guidelines. It covers assessments of human rights, environment, climate, corruption and weapons sales, resulting in multiple company exclusions, observations and revocations, alongside ongoing sectoral investigations.
Research
14 April 2021

Nature-related risks and the duties of directors of Canadian corporations

Resilient LLP
This legal opinion examines whether nature-related risks are foreseeable and material for Canadian companies. It concludes directors must consider, manage and, where material, disclose such risks to meet fiduciary and care duties under Canadian corporate and securities law.
Research
29 July 2025

Trillions or billions: Reassessing the potential for european institutional investment in emerging markets and developing economies

Overseas Development Institute (ODI)
The report finds European pension funds and insurers have limited capacity to scale EMDE investment. Even doubling allocations by the 35 largest asset owners would yield about USD 120 billion annually, concentrated in investment-grade assets. Regulation constrains insurers more than pension funds.
Research
23 May 2024

A theory of fair CEO pay

This research models executive pay where CEOs suffer disutility from 'unfair' wages. Firms motivate effort by threatening zero pay for poor performance, offering a fair output share only above a threshold. This rationalises performance-vesting equity and pay-for-performance structures even without traditional moral hazard incentives.
Research
15 October 2024

Navigating the corporate ego: Understanding the association between ESG performance and organizational narcissistic rhetoric

This study analyses 1,659 FTSE 350 observations to explore the link between ESG performance and organisational narcissistic rhetoric. Findings indicate that high ESG performance correlates with increased self-promoting language, though greater board gender diversity mitigates this effect. Additionally, strong financial results are positively associated with narcissistic corporate narratives.
Research
14 July 2025

Briefing paper: The fiduciary duty case for climate justice

Intentional Endowments Network
The report argues that climate justice is integral to fiduciary duty, as climate and inequality risks threaten long-term value. It outlines definitions, system-level investment frameworks, and practical tools that help investors manage systemic risks and support a just low-carbon transition.
Research
26 June 2025
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