The Principles for Responsible Investment (PRI) is developing a strategy to help investors engage with policymakers on human rights issues.

The United Nations-backed body last week published an overview of the progress made by Advance, an initiative through which 118 of its signatory investors engage their portfolio companies to promote responsible business conduct.

Members include Cardano, Phoenix Group and BNP Paribas, who all provided case studies of human rights stewardship.

None of the investors had engaged with regulators as part of their efforts so far, according to the report, which also noted that corporate disclosure on political engagement activities was limited, “making it difficult to assess alignment with human rights commitments”.

To help address the lack of transparency and activity around lobbying, the PRI said it would start rolling out strategies to “advocate for regulatory frameworks that enable responsible business conduct”.

“The initiative will consider supporting engagement between investors and policymakers and regulators where appropriate, recognising that public policy is a critical mechanism for advancing the implementation of the UNGPs,” said the authors, referring to the UN’s Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights.

Aerial view of the UN headquarters in New York

Source: UN Photo/Yutaka Nagata

The United Nations’ Guiding Principles establish a global framework for preventing and addressing the risk of adverse human rights impacts linked to business activity

The PRI said it would help its signatories identify lessons and best practice to have already emerged from climate lobbying.

‘All over the place’

Speaking on a webinar organised by the Institutional Investor Group on Climate Change last week, one of the leading companies on responsible lobbying called for the creation of a universal framework to help companies assess trade bodies.

Fiona Duggan, a senior sustainability manager at consumer goods giant Unilever, said the current lack of standardisation around how business associations are judged is unhelpful for everyone.

Unilever was one of the first to respond to a shareholder call for companies to evaluate their trade bodies to ensure they don’t undermine progress on climate change.

Duggan’s comments garnered the support of Patrick Peura, the head of engagement at Allianz Investment Management, who said in a subsequent LinkedIn post that “the structure of the lobbying and association review, not just the assessment of those being reviewed, is frustratingly always all over the place”.

“When a company asks, [it] would be great to hand over one or two solid guidelines instead of dozens of examples from others,” he said.

Peura added that the focus on lobbying should broaden from climate to “any mission critical topic a company has made goals for”.

“Take plastic. If a large bottler has plastic commitments, they too should be able to demonstrate they lobby in line with those commitments especially if they ‘blame’ policy inaction for not reaching the target.”

Read the digital edition of IPE’s latest magazine