Management

Continuing Action

This section explains the main steps involved in setting up systems to manage your environmental impacts and some of the forms of recognition (standards, labels, reporting) available should your company wish to gain environmental credentials. Finally, initiatives such as corporate social responsibility, corporate governance and ethical investment are explained as these can overlap with environmental responsibility initiatives and they are being adopted by the screen production industry overseas and in New Zealand.

Ethical investment

Ethical or socially responsible investment are terms to describe any area of the financial sector where the principles of the investor influence which organisation or venture they choose to place their money with. Ethical investment portfolios use three main strategies to implement their investment strategies:

Engagement: No companies are excluded but areas are identified in which companies can improve their environmental, social and ethical performance. The fund managers then "engage" with the companies to encourage them to make such improvements.

Preference: The funds adopt social, environmental or other ethical criteria which they prefer companies to meet. These criteria are applied where all other things are equal (e.g. financial performance).

Screening: An “acceptable list” of companies is created based on chosen positive and/or negative criteria (e.g. avoid companies involved in the arms trade, include companies with good environmental performance and so on). Funds are invested only in those companies on the list.

The Dow Jones Sustainability Index (DJSI) and the FTSE4Good are two investment indexes that track the financial performance of the leading sustainability-driven companies worldwide. To be included in the FTSE4Good, companies must be:

Working towards environmental sustainability

Developing positive relationships with stakeholders

Upholding and supporting universal human rights.