Guided by the six principles for Responsible Investment and the PRI mission

OUR STRATEGIC THEME 2021-24

Building a bridge between financial risk and real-world outcomes

OUR STRATEGIC DRIVERS

BIG TENT

We welcome a diverse signatory base. Diversity gives us strength. We aim to provide value for all.

ACCOUNTABILITY

Accountability is critical for signatory credibility and drives progress.

SCALABILITY

Scale leverages signatories’ responsible investment effort and impact. We aim to support signatory learning and collaboration at scale.

 

 

The 2021-24 strategy begins at a moment marked by multiple, interrelated crises: the COVID-19 pandemic, environmental challenges and deepening social inequalities. Despite the economic disruption, Responsible investment has entered the mainstream, and investors’ work with environmental, social and governance issues has grown ever more sophisticated. But there is still much to be done.  

The PRI Principles and Mission are more relevant – and more necessary – than ever before. Under the framework of our 10-year Blueprint for Responsible Investment, the PRI’s new three-year strategic plan sets out an ambitious response to these circumstances, building on the unique role of the PRI and our signatory base, and on our distinctive strengths as the world’s largest responsible investment organisation. 

 

…increasingly, our signatories are recognising that the real-world sustainability outcomes they contribute to shaping through their investment activities will feed back into the financial risks they face. For this reason, Building a bridge between financial risk, opportunities and real-world outcomes is a key element of this strategy.


ESG incorporation and stewardship are our core business and remain a major focus of our work in the next three years. We will continue supporting our signatories to incorporate ESG issues, and continue contributing to an enabling environment for ESG incorporation. Increasingly, our signatories are recognising that the real-world sustainability outcomes they contribute to shaping through their investment activities will feed back into the financial risks they face. For this reason, Building a bridge between financial risk, opportunities and real-world outcomes is a key element of this strategy. In the coming three years, the PRI will help signatories understand what this looks like in practice, how to integrate and how to measure outcomes, while remaining grounded in fiduciary duty and the broader role of investors in society.  

We will continue to structure our work in line with the action areas set out in the Blueprint for Responsible Investment. Our work in this period will comprise 22 key initiatives under the themes set out in the Blueprint: responsible investors, sustainable markets and a more prosperous world for all. 

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Source: PRI Academy
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Responsible investors

  • Provide evidence, tools, guidance and examples of best practice on assessing financial risks/opportunities and links to real-world outcomes
  • Develop investors’ understanding of, and approach to, stewardship
  • Facilitate collaborative engagements on priority ESG issues
  • Provide dedicated support for asset owners
  • Increase support for responsible investment in emerging markets
  • Deliver the new reporting and assessment process, following the pilot
  • Develop a leadership programme that recognises excellence and supports learning
  • Increase minimum requirements
  • Build confidence in data reported to the PRI, by exploring stronger assurance measures
  • Enhance training for investment professionals through the PRI Academy
  • Better connect investors and academics

Sustainable markets

  • Engage with policy makers on climate and other priority issues
  • Contribute to ESG incorporation being implemented in financial policy and regulation
  • Conduct legal and policy analysis to help develop the environment and frameworks needed to support investing for real-world outcomes
  • Work with other financial market participants to ensure their products and services are aligned with the sustainability needs of their investor clients
  • Collaborate with others to develop a single global sustainability reporting system for investors and corporations
  • Analyse investment market structure, to define sustainability-enhancing interventions for systemically important participants

A prosperous world for all

  • Provide tailored guidance on investing with real-world outcomes across multiple markets
  • Develop tools and guidance for assessing climate risk.
  • Support signatory climate action in aligning portfolios towards net zero by 2050.
  • Build investors’ understanding of human rights and support them in embedding the UN Guiding Principles and the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises
  • Support investor action on priority ESG issues, including through incorporation activities and shaping outcomes in line with planetary boundaries, inclusive societies and a corporate culture that delivers sustainable performance.

If successful in our vision, we can expect by 2024 to see investors consider, in their investment decision-making, the impact they have on the real economy and the world in which their beneficiaries live and plan to retire. ESG will be integrated in financial policy and regulation in core markets. Legal frameworks for investing for impact will be in place in several markets. Leading financial systems will align incentives, behaviours and policy with sustainability. Investors will use international human rights frameworks in their investment activities and align with a 1.5C pathway, working towards net zero by 2050. Progress will be underway towards a global sustainability reporting system for investors and corporations.

It is an ambitious vision, and there is still much to be done, but we are well placed to achieve it together. 

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