OWW Consulting

In April 2006 the UN Secretary General, Kofi Annan, launched the UN Principles for Responsible Investment (UNPRI ).A list of the Principles and possible actions associated with them, can be found at the UNPRI .

One of the goals of the UNEP Financial Initiative’s Principles for Responsible Investment is to integrate the “Triple Bottom Line” - Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) and other Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) issues into the mainstream investment process.

OWW Consulting is the first company in Malaysia to provide both the data and tools necessary to track and monitor ESG/CSR information using Responsibility^TM – The OWW Responsible Management Solution Tool. Responsibility^TM helps companies to collate and present ESG/CSR data in an objective, systematic, transparent and flexible manner.

We hope that our approach will allow investors to fully incorporate these issues into their investment decisions and encourage companies in Asia to provide ESG/CSR information in a more open and user-friendly way.

OWW welcomes and supports the UNPRI and commits to implementing the six Principles into our work at all possible stages.

We also actively recommend the Principles to our clients and partners – who we encourage to become signatories to the Principles in due course.

OWW Consulting supports the implementation of each of the six Principles in the following ways:-

PRI Principle 1 – We will incorporate ESG issues into investment analysis and decision-making processes.

OWW has been at the forefront of the development of ESG/CSR related tools, metrics and analysis in Malaysia and Singapore. Our Responsibility^TM Management Tools provides an effective and inexpensive web-based system available to all organisations – large, medium or small. Responsibility^TM allows companies to identify their existing strengths in ESG/CSR and to highlight areas where they should focus more attention. It provides a benchmark for their current performance and a metric to measure their improvement year-on-year.

Our Responsible Asia^TM system provides the support for internal investment managers to address ESG/CSR issues within their company and to report it efficiently and effectively to external investment managers.

OWW Directors have also been at the forefront of academic research in the area of ESG/CSR and Socially Responsible Investment (SRI). Our research has been published in leading academic journals and is presented at major international conferences for academics and practitioners alike; most recently at the Asia Strategic Leadership Institute (ASLI) CSR and Corporate Governance Conference in Kuala Lumpur and at the beginning of November at the National Accountants’ Conference (NAC) of the Malaysia Institute of Accounting (MIA).

Our research expertise is available to companies, brokers and investment firms through our Private Client Research Portfolio and some is also made available free of charge on the Social Science Research Network of nearly 70,000 Social Scientists worldwide.

Our Directors have excellent academic credentials both as teachers and researchers in higher education worldwide. We integrate the insights of our research into our ESG/CSR training programmes for investment and management professionals to advocate the use of non-financial issues in all stages of the investment decision.

PRI Principle 2 – We will be active owners and incorporate ESG issues into our ownership policies and practices.

OWW has developed a portfolio of products – Asian Opinions^TM, Responsibility^TM and Responsible Asia^TM – which are available to investment professionals. Our portfolio actively encourages stakeholder engagement and offers a credible and efficient set of options for them to outsource this work to us.

OWW regularly contributes to the development of ESG/CSR policy in Malaysia and Singapore and we work closely with government agencies, not-for-profit organisations and NGOs in both countries.

For example in we have been commissioned by the Steering Group on CSR chaired, by Dato’ Zarinah Anwar of the Malaysian Securities Commission, to devise a SRI Index for Malaysian companies. The Steering Committee is composed of leading stakeholders in Malaysia including Bursa Malaysia, Institut Integriti Malaysia, ACCA (Malaysia) and major companies such as Petronas, Sime Darby, HSBC, BP, Shell, Malaysian Airways and others.

In Singapore OWW Directors have worked on the development of the Corporate Transparency Index (CTI) in collaboration with ACCA and the Business Times. The Singapore Business Times CTI now includes more than 650 companies.

PRI Principle 3 – We will seek appropriate disclosure on ESG issues by the entities in which we invest.

OWW actively supports appropriate disclosure of ESG/CSR issues by companies with which we work through our product portfolio – Asian Opinions^TM, Responsibility^TM and Responsible AsiaTM – and through our advocacy and support for international standards such as the GRI and the UNPRI.

PRI Principle 4 – We will promote acceptance and implementation of the Principles within the investment industry.

OWW aims to include UNPRI related requirements into all of our work and to request Principles-related information from our clients and partners.

ESG/CSR and SRI issues are central to the work of OWW and to our commitment to improving monitoring and reporting of ESG/CSR and SRI issues amongst the business communities in Malaysia and Singapore.

We provide through our portfolio – Asian Opinions^TM, Responsibility^TM and Responsible Asia^TM – a system for benchmarking and monitoring ESG/CSR and SRI performance over time. We encourage close relationships with our clients – who we consider as partners in the ESG/CSR process – which allow us to revisit them to help ensure that their ESG/CSR policies develop and mature in line with changing standards and stakeholder expectations.

We regularly monitor the changing regulatory environment worldwide and we aim to continue to participate actively in the analysis and development of policy, which we hope will help to ensure the effective implementation of the UNPRI across a wider base.

PRI Principle 5 – We will work together to enhance our effectiveness in implementing the Principles.

OWW is committed to working closely with other stakeholders in Malaysia and Singapore as well as worldwide. We regularly participate in stakeholder networks and we aim to provide opportunities in the future for further initiatives in this area.

We are committed to working with others to address emerging ESG/CSR issues in line with the UNPRI Initiative and to help to develop and support appropriate collaborative events drawing on our links with companies, government agencies, NGOs and universities around the world.

PRI Principle 6 – We will each report on our activities and progress towards implementing the Principles.

At OWW, we aim to be open and transparent in all of our activities and we commit to providing regular updates on our activities and on our progress towards encouraging the use of the UNPRI Framework.

We aim to make a available a clear and consistent set of standards both to help our own partners to be certain of our commitment to them and to help them to understand what we expect in return.

We aim to communicate these standards actively and to monitor our progress and achievements relating to the Principles. Where we fail to meet our commitments we will aim to explain the reasons why – we will “Comply or Explain”

We will also actively encourage our clients and partners to follow the same approach and shall request information and explanations from them wherever they do not appear to comply with the Principles.

Through our service portfolio – Asian Opinions^TM, Responsibility^TM and Responsible Asia^TM  – we will seek to determine the impact of the UNPRI in the areas in which we work. We will continue to conduct state-of-the-art academic research to determine the impact of the Principles in the wider context of the evolving academic debate on ESG/CSR issues – to which OWW has already contributed significantly.

OWW will actively encourage firms to make use of reporting to raise awareness of ESG/CSR issues among as wide a group of stakeholders as possible. We will offer training and support for our partners to help them to report more effectively in line with the Principles and to improve year-on-year wherever possible.