The Texas District Court has dismissed oil and gas major ExxonMobil’s lawsuit against shareholders over a resolution asking the company to set medium-term decarbonisation targets. The judge concluded that Exxon’s challenge was moot, as activist group Follow This and asset manager Arjuna Capital withdrew the proposal and promised not to resubmit again. “Exxon’s insistence on litigating abstract future potentialities lends credence to Arjuna’s arguments regarding [its] motives,” Judge Mark Pittman remarked in the court order. Investors have been concerned that Exxon chose the path of litigation to undermine the authority of the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and discourage other shareholders from challenging the company on its climate ambitions. “The dismissal of Exxon’s lawsuit against shareholders is a victory for all investors who want to safeguard the long-term future of US oil and gas companies and the global economy in view of the climate crisis,” said Mark van Baal, Founder of Follow This. “The right for shareholders to file proposals has not been compromised, as no precedent about the application of the SEC rules and use of shareholder rights has been created, which was the ultimate goal of pulling our proposal. The dismissal stalls Exxon’s attack on the rights of all shareholders to table proposals about emissions – the root cause of the climate crisis,” van Baal explained. If the case had been allowed to continue, it would have had a detrimental effect on climate-focused shareholder proposals in the future and prevented investors from effecting change to protect the long-term health of portfolio companies, he added.

The Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) has urged the UK government to commit to a long-term green industrial strategy by creating business and regulatory certainty in the sector. In a report released ahead of a general election on 4 July, the think tank said the next government should “lead from the front” by delivering high-quality public investments to crowd in private sector funds – especially in industries such as electric vehicles and renewable energy. “If the economy is an engine, then investment is its fuel, and the UK’s dire productivity performance is the single biggest driver of our dire living standards,” said George Dibb, Associate Director for Economic Policy at the IPPR. “Without resources flowing into new investment, it’s hard to see how UK economic performance can improve. The government needs to take the lead by developing a green industrial strategy and show businesses that the UK is a secure, sensible and stable place to invest.” The calls came as part of the IPPR’s latest analysis of OECD figures, which showed that investment by private companies in the UK was the lowest among G7 countries for the third consecutive year. The country was 28^th out of 31 OECD countries for business investment, and has ranked lowest in the G7 for 24 of the last 30 years for overall investment – including public, private, household and non-for-profit investments. “Public sector investments in education, infrastructure and healthcare are needed to create the right conditions for growth,” the report noted. Alongside committing to a long-term green industrial strategy, the IPPR recommended reviewing fiscal rules to address volatility and constraints on productive public investment, and establishing public investment benchmarks setting out explicitly how much is needed to achieve government goals. “This paper confirms policy uncertainty as a key blocker to the flow of private investment in the UK. To see it score so poorly in comparison to every other nation in the G7 should come as a wake-up call to policymakers,” said James Alexander, CEO of UKSIF. “We only need to look at the uncertainty and indecision around renewable energy or electric vehicles, key potential areas of future growth, to see why the UK is suffering comparatively. Investors want clarity and certainty, and UK policymaking has not done enough to provide it. We must quickly act to take down the barriers to private investment.” Alexander cited slow planning permission, insufficient grid connectivity, and unclear rules of engagement between public and private capital for projects such as gigafactories as examples of key impediments. “[Remove those], and we can start to catch up with our G7 neighbours,” he added.

The UN Working Group on Business and Human Rights has published a report clarifying how investors can and should align their ESG and sustainability efforts with their responsibilities under its Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights. The report provided analysis of ESG financial products and services, and of associated standards, frameworks, policies and practices’ performance on human rights. It highlighted emerging trends as well as opportunities for improvement – including undertaking human rights due diligence, calling on portfolio companies to act in accordance with their responsibility to respect such rights, and establishing board oversight of risk management. The guidance covers institutional investors, including asset owners such as pension funds – but not multilateral or national development finance institutions, insurance companies or fintech. The working group, which reports to the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, said the report was published in recognition of the growing use of data, indexes, ratings, benchmarking and funds labelled as ‘ESG’. “A key challenge is that most financial actors fail to connect human rights standards and processes with ESG criteria and investment practices,” the group said. “[This is] because of a prevailing lack of understanding on how human rights issues should be reflected in social criteria, environmental and governance issues.”

Only a quarter (24) of the UK’s 101 largest listed companies have improved their performance on workplace mental health in the past year, according to CCLA. The 2024 iteration of the asset manager’s Corporate Mental Health Benchmark also evidenced that investors and policymakers were increasingly concerned about the cost of mental health issues to the UK economy. An NHS-commissioned study estimated annual economic losses due to poor mental health at around £110 billion in England alone, while recent Office for National Statistics figures showed a 31% rise in the number of UK workers economically inactive due to related illnesses since 2019. In total, 54 investors with a combined US$9.4 trillion in AUM were supporting engagement efforts on workplace mental health, CCLA said. Of the 101 assessed businesses, 20 ranked in the top-two performance tiers in 2024 – up from 10 in 2022 – suggesting close to 1.5 million employees now worked in businesses with a “mature approach” to mental health. Six firms made the top tier – BT Group, Centrica, Entain, Experian, J Sainsbury and Serco Group – while around half ranked in the bottom-two tiers, suggesting many are still in the early stages of formalising their approach to mental health management and disclosure. “The significant increase in engagement on this topic since 2023 suggests a growing awareness by companies of poor mental health as a business risk, with many informally citing talent acquisition and retention as a key driver,” said Amy Browne, Stewardship Lead at CCLA and co-author of the report. “Importantly, this year’s benchmark demonstrates that the most progressive companies are making concerted efforts to get ahead on mental health.” However, the results revealed a widening gap between leaders and a slow-moving majority, with lingering concerns around lack of progress in companies at the bottom of the tier rankings. “Employees deserve better from their employers,” Browne added. Only 44% of companies said they provided training for line managers to support employees’ mental health issues (down from 50% in 2023), while 42% of CEOs publicly promoted workplace mental health. Now in its third year, CCLA’s benchmark covers 4.9 million workers.