The Principles for Responsible Investment (PRI) has launched its updated Reporting Framework for its 2023 reporting season, which opens in mid-May.
PRI’s work has shown clearly that signatories face increasing regulatory reporting demands, and operate in a fragmented global landscape, with different demands and expectations in different markets.
The aim with the PRI’s Reporting Framework for 2023 is, in part, to deliver a reporting process which clearly shows where progress has been made on responsible investment and where more work is needed, while also delivering insight on the global responsible investment landscape to a commonly applicable standard.
PRI’s reporting process is the largest voluntary responsible investment reporting process in the world, PRI claims, and as such, it is the only framework specifically for responsible investing to provide insight to a comparable standard irrespective of an organisation’s location around the globe and is therefore distinct from individual regulatory requirements.
David Atkin, PRI chief executive officer, said: “We are very pleased to launch 2023 reporting for PRI’s signatories. The updated framework provides a valuable way for our signatories to monitor and report progress against their ESG investing goals. In addition, the framework will offer broader insights into progress on responsible investment issues which are important to our signatories and the responsible investment ecosystem broadly.”
PRI reporting first took place in its current form in 2012 and is designed to provide PRI signatories with clarity around their responsible investment activity, as well as inform PRI’s own ongoing work.
The framework for 2023 has been revised and designed to reflect feedback from PRI’s signatories. Feedback focussed on the need to improve clarity, consistency and applicability of the framework, as well as the need to take reasonable steps to align more closely with other global reporting processes and therefore support signatories in managing their overall reporting efforts.
In addition to these optimisations, changes to the reporting framework have been designed to reflect emerging themes across the responsible investment landscape and build on PRI’s 2020 research programme.
For example, climate change and human rights are recognised as priority issues in the PRI Strategic Plan 2021-2024. The PRI encourages signatories to embed these priority issues in their policies and governance structure, and this is reflected in updates made to the framework, PRI said in a statement.
Specifically, in 2023 the PRI is introducing voluntary indicators solely focused on human rights for the first time, based on the PRI’s 2020 paper – Why and how investors should act on human rights.
Other specific improvements made to PRI reporting in 2023 include:
- improving clarity by reviewing and updating terminology and minimising the ambiguity of some questions;
- improving consistency and applicability by improving the logic underpinning structural elements of the reporting process and restructuring other elements to ensure that signatories report on the areas most relevant to them;
- alignment of relevant sections with widely adopted external standards, including those required by the Task Force on Climate-Related Financial Disclosures (TCFD);
- indicators have been made less prescriptive in some areas, and have been made relevant to a broader range of signatories;
- reducing the granularity of data requested and the overall number of reporting indicators, while maintaining the goal of delivering an insightful process which drives transparency around the global responsible investment landscape.
Collectively, these changes represent significant and valuable evolution of PRI’s reporting process, the organisation said. They demonstrate PRI’s commitment to engaging with signatory feedback to deliver a process which is streamlined, informative and effective.
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