Rathbone Greenbank Investments' Matt Crossman formed part of the panel at this Parliamentary event on corporate transparency on social and environmental issues, hosted by Client Earth and FairPensions. Joining Jonathan Porritt CBE, James Thornton and Martin Harwood MP, the panel sought to highlight and discuss the cross-over between social and environmental performance and financial risk.

Giving an investor’s perspective, Matt drew on recent events in the Gulf of Mexico to highlight the fact that environmental performance can clearly be linked with financial valuation. Presenting from his experience as part of Rathbone Greenbank Investments dedicated ethical research team, Matt called for the creation of robust non-financial reporting regimes to give investors confidence in the information made public by companies. The reliability of this information was highlighted as a key concern, and the desirability of independent verification of data was emphasised.

The coalition government has recently expressed its intention to re-examine the UK corporate reporting regime. Client Earth have been leading the debate, recently producing an insightful research piece recommending improvements to the existing arrangements under the Companies Act 2006. This highly successful event showed the interest in improved non-financial reporting from a wide range of stakeholders, and the potential for meaningful reform in this area driving improvements in corporate disclosure.