Sharing knowledge, reaching new people and supporting development will benefit everyone
10-year Blueprint commitments:
- focus global recruitment on growing the number of asset owner signatories;
- reach new markets and institutions;
- introduce an associate member category for asset owners new to responsible investment; and
- expand the reach of responsible investment training.
Convene
Key targets
Signatories attending[1] at least one PRI event: 62%
(PRI target: 50%)
Participants at regional digital forums rating them ‘excellent’ or ‘good’: 90%
(PRI target: 85%)
Digital forums
2,211 attendees at our three digital conferences…
…representing over 1,300 organisations and 73 countries
To continue convening and educating responsible investors despite the ongoing disruption caused by COVID-19, we hosted three digital forums last year across Europe, the Middle East and Africa, Asia-Pacific and the Americas.
Speakers included UN Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed, Professor John Ruggie of the Harvard Kennedy School, and Japanese Vice Minister of the Environment Tokutaro Nakai. The sessions featured keynote presentations, panel discussions and breakout sessions, including:
- the launch of the PRI’s flagship report on why and how investors should act on human rights;
- expert-led discussions on topics such as climate change, the Sustainable Development Goals, ESG in fixed income, and global responsible investment policy trends.
More information on the digital forums and other events can be found here.
It was valuable to hear about what others are doing to manage climate risks and in response to the EU sustainable finance regulations. Some speakers mentioned the usefulness of industry dialogues – the PRI EMEA Forum is a great platform to facilitate these dialogues.
Webinars
Over 14,000 unique webinar registrations
We significantly expanded our calendar of webinars and podcasts in the absence of in-person events and now have a substantial library of content that signatories can watch or listen to on-demand, covering a host of responsible investment topics, including:
- corporate governance in China;
- the Net Zero Asset Owner Alliance;
- ESG credit risk and ratings; and
- manager selection, appointment and monitoring.
Educate
The Academic Network
The Academic Network Conference took place in October 2020, showcasing responsible investment evidence and insights from 15 academic papers. As with our other events, we moved the conference to an online format, broadening participation to 728 registrants, up from 175 last year – 349 academics and 379 investors.
We also launched:
- an interactive seminar series, allowing thought leaders to present working papers, and published 37 blog posts summarising the research findings;
- a curation of influential, peer-reviewed research, and searchable review tools on ESG literature and ESG data for investors and academics.
Key targets
Participants rating Academic Network conference as ‘good’ or ‘excellent’: 89%
(PRI target: 85%)
The PRI Academy
Over 5,000 enrolments across our courses in 2020/21, up from 4022 in 2019/20
Demand for the PRI Academy’s offering remains high, with revenues exceeding £1m for the first time and the largest sale to date recorded in the past year. Over the last year we introduced a new learning management system to provide a more modern, user-friendly learner experience and launched a new version of our most popular course, Getting Started in Responsible Investment.
As competition in the ESG training market intensifies, we are focused on building foundations for long-term growth by revitalising our course offerings and strengthening our team.
Key targets
Satisfaction rating of PRI Academy courses: 97%
(PRI target: 85%)
Increase in the number of enrolments on PRI Academy: 24%
(PRI target: 14%)
The Getting Started in Responsible Investment programme has been really well received by our employees, providing a strong foundational knowledge for them to consider ESG issues in investment decision making, and practical case studies on how to apply the learning.
Julie Aspinall, Head of Learning and Development, Legal and General Investment Management
References
[1] The target reflects registration rather than attendee numbers due to challenges recording attendee data in Salesforce for digital events over the last year.
