Peter Webster Email & Phone Number

Boston, Massachusetts, United States

London, United Kingdom

SInce 2015 when the Foundation merged its research subsidiary EIRIS with Vigeo, I have led the EIRIS Foundation on a new strategy. This is about making sure that responsible investment and corporate responsibly make a real difference and in particular contribute to the economic transformation implied by the Sustainable Development Goals and the Paris Climate Agreement in ways that benefit investors, society and the environment. We have chosen to focus on • How individuals and charities can make a difference through their investment decisions and how they can use their influence with other responsible investors to do so as well. • How investor engagement with companies and the development of best practices in corporate responsibility can make meaningful contributions Projects have included helping to create the Corporate Human Rights Benchmark and then providing the research for its annual public ranking of compaies; and promoting charity ethical money action plans to help charities work through the various question they need to address to make sure their missions are driving their investment decisisons.

London, England Metropolitan Area

London, United Kingdom

In the first 18 months following the merger of Vigeo and EIRIS, I devoted my time to helping the integration of the two teams and the products and services of the two organisations as we rolled out our plans to scale the work and develop our offering on a "best of both" basis.More recently I have focussed on representing the organisation internationally; on the promotion of the products we have created; and on using my 35 years experience in this field to help the organisation identify and act upon trends and viewpoints amongst responsible investors and understand their implications for our work. In 2019, Moody's become the majority shareholder in Vigeo Eiris which has created a wide range of new opportunities to develop the work, particularly with regard to fixed income investors.

From 1983-93 my focus was:• Establishing EIRIS as a responsible investment research organisation, replacing charitable grants with paying clients• Helping to create the UK ethical funds market by providing research and producing guides for the public and for advisers.From 1993-2003 the focus broadened from the retail to the pensions industry and to globalising EIRIS:• We helped UKSIF (where I was treasurer) support the UK pensions disclosure regulations. UK pension funds had to state their position on environmental, social and governance (ESG) issues and their asset managers then needed help responding.• I commissioned and then “in-sourced” our portfolio manager software which transformed our client relationships• We built a global network of research partners and started building a global client base.• Our research focussed on the ESG risks companies faced and how they responded with policies, management systems and stakeholder reporting.From 2003-13 the focus became the value of ESG issues to all investors whether “players” or “spectators” as ESG issues have grown in importance to them.• We researched emerging markets by working with South African and Mexican stock exchanges and deepened our Asian coverage with our Korean partner.• We developed specific voting, engagement and other products like our Sustainability Rating to provide clients with specific solutions. • I encouraged the sustainable investment associations (or SIFs) to work together globally and with other bodies supporting responsible investors. I helped to chair the first global SIFs meeting in New York in 2011.• We researched material issues like the corporate direction of travel on climate change and the management of water scarcity. We benchmarked approaches to combating bribery and how companies manage ESG issues at Board level. We examined in detail how global companies responded to allegations that they may be in breach of international principles themselves.

Mathematics

Master Of Business Administration (Mba)