Norway wealth fund to push firms for more non-financial data

Norway's $1.1 trillion wealth fund will this year push the 9,200 firms it invests in to provide corporate sustainability data regularly and in a standardised way in its latest effort to get disclosures, it said on Tuesday.

The world's largest fund has been a first mover on sustainability issues for years, starting at topics such as child labour and water consumption over a decade ago. As a broad fund invested in nearly every multinational on earth, the fund has been keen to get access to relevant non-financial data so that it can measure so-called externalities - how the impact of the activity of one company it is invested in can impact the activity of another.

"In recent years, we have requested companies to go from words to numbers in their sustainability reporting. We wish to see more relevant and comparable reporting ... so that we, as an investor can analyse the companies' exposure to sustainability risks," Chief Executive Yngve Slyngstad said. The fund said the corporate sustainability reporting should use established standards, starting with disclosures based on the Global Reporting Initiative Standards and Sustainability Accounting Standards Boards that are specific to a company's industry.

For environment-related disclosures, including climate, water and information data, the fund wants companies to use the platform of the UK-based Carbon Disclosure Project. Among other specific measures, it wants coal companies to report on deposits they use and what they do to ensure they do not leak and contaminate the environment.