Rikke Lind joins speakers from some of Europe’s largest institutional investors and corporates at landmark summit.

Rikke Lind, state secretary for the Norwegian Ministry of Trade and Industry, will be one of the opening government speakers for the ESG Europe 2010conference on October 13 at the Okura Hotel in Amsterdam, organized by Responsible-Investor.com in partnership with the Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs, the Norwegian Embassy in The Hague, CSRNetherlands, and in association with the European Sustainable Investment Forum (Eurosif). A government speaker from the Netherlands will also shortly be announced to join some of Europe’s largest institutional investors and corporations at the investor/corporate summit to debate the gap between investor expectations on environmental, social and governance (ESG) factors and the CSR (corporate social reporting) initiatives of leading companies. The conference subtitle is: Bridging the gap between investor ESG requirements and corporate CSRreporting. Other top-level speakers include representatives from the Norwegian Ministry of Finance (Government Pension Fund – Global), APG,PGGM, Shell, Unilever, Philips, the European Commission, OECD and the London School of Economics. A special pre-conference dinner on the evening of October 12 will feature a keynote address byRoger Urwin, Global Head of Content at Towers Watson. The event is open to attendance by investors and corporations with asset owners (pension funds/foundations/charities) given complimentary access.
The conference will also unveil the latest 2010 biennial research report by the European Sustainable Investment Forum (Eurosif) on the growth of the European

responsible investment (SRI) market, the benchmark measure of the size of responsibly managed assets amongst institutional investors. The event will focus on best practice in corporate governance and sustainability reporting, corporate/investor engagement, the mainstreaming and promotion of sustainability initiatives in corporates and increasing market stability.

Key topics and themes to be covered at ESG Europe 2010: 
• How ESG and CSR connect and where the relationship is headed. 
• The growth of the European SRI market: Eurosif report.
• The mainstreaming of sustainability initiatives in corporates. 
• How companies can innovate in sustainable products.
• Where is the Carbon Disclosure Project headed? Water and biodiversity? 
• What’s holding investors back from allocating to the green space? 
• How are institutional investors globally looking at allying for investment in green tech. 
• Is corporate reputation risk increasing for investors? 
• Re-establishing sustainability in pensions and investment. 
• Investing for long-term market sustainability. 
• Impact of the EU Green Paper on corporate governance in financial institutions. 
• Has anything changed in the debate over shareholders as owners? 
• Institutional investors working together on corporate governance.

Link to conference programme.