The International Securities Lending Association (ISLA) has laid out plans to consolidate its environmental, social and governance (ESG) mission by decommissioning the Council for Sustainable Finance (ICSF) and absorbing its members and projects into its working groups.
The council’s objective was to initiate debate on ESG in securities lending and introduce the concept of the Principles for Sustainable Securities Lending (PSSL), a voluntary benchmark for sustainable financing, says ISLA.
The trade association now aims to streamline the various aspects of its ESG initiatives which were split between working groups and the semi-autonomous council, which launched in January and was chaired by Radek Stech, a senior lecturer at the University of Exeter’s law school.
ISLA says it has invited all relevant ICSF members and partners to join its ESG working groups and will take on the mantle of its work in advancing the sustainability agenda.
The London-based association explains this move underlines its commitment to the development of ESG solutions to its predominantly Europe, Middle East and Africa membership base, whilst following closely all regional and global initiatives across securities lending as well as broader financial markets.
Bringing its ESG initiatives under one roof “will lead to efficiencies from a delivery perspective, as the ESG debate moves from a concept and design phase, to one of detailed implementation”, ISLA adds.
The trade body also hopes to create a more broad church approach to its ESG discussions and bring in other aspects of its membership that were not directly represented by the council, which was mostly dedicated to beneficial owners.
SLT understands that this may lead to the creation of an ESG steering committee that will oversee various working groups on specific areas.
ISLA CEO Andrew Dyson says the achievement of the council so far to raise awareness of the challenges as well as areas of alignment between ESG and securities lending are “invaluable”.
“I want to thank each and every individual and firm involved in this initiative, and am excited about how we take much of this work forward for our members across the EMEA region,” Dyson adds.
Elsewhere, former council chair Stech launched an independent entity, Global PSSL, in October which has a similar vision to ICSF for pursuing ESG adoption and standardisation but on a global scale.
Commenting separately on the drivers behind forming the not-for-profit community interest company, Stech says that through his academic work, he concluded that “regional limitations and allegiance to a single market were holding PSSL back from attaining its true potential”.
He adds: “I am delighted with the overwhelming response to this initiative.”
“In just three weeks, over forty prominent organisations from around the globe have committed resources to help develop and implement Global PSSL.”
“Now that PSSL has evolved into Global PSSL, this is the right time to step away from the ICSF brand and advance this initiative on an international scale, without bureaucracy.”
