The New Zealand Superannuation Fund (NZS) is hosting a workshop this week highlighting the role of human rights in corporate financial performance.
Set down for the afternoon of August 10 (this Wednesday), the workshop, led by senior staff of non-profit human rights organisation Shift, targets both “investors and directors”, according to the NZS promo.
“This half-day session will bring together senior leaders from New Zealand’s investor and director community to explore how human rights risks connect to financial risks and how to evaluate the robustness of a company’s human rights risk management systems,” the release says.
The US-based Shift includes a core group of staff that helped develop the UN Guiding Principles Reporting Framework on business and human rights.
“The Framework is backed by an international investor coalition representing over US $4.8 trillion in assets under management – the largest ever on a human rights initiative,” the NZS says.
Scheduled to begin at 1pm on Wednesday in the NZS Auckland office on Queen Street, the workshop will cover subjects including trends in global regulation and how to mesh human rights in environmental, social and governance (ESG) investments.
“Directors and investors are invited to attend for the first half, while the second half will be more tailored to investors,” the NZS says.
In other news, a couple of late year conference opportunities with fintech flavours have also opened up for the New Zealand industry with events confirmed for October and November, respectively.
While the NZ-OECD ‘High-level Global Symposium on Financial Education’, slated for October 12-13 in Auckland, mainly tackles its headline subject, the program includes sessions on the implications of fintech.
Hosted by the Commission for Financial Capability (CFFC), the two-day OECD symposium, themed around ‘Today vs tomorrow’, will host delegates from up to 40 countries.
In a release, CFFC chief, Diane Maxwell, said many of the delegates and speakers hail from jurisdictions where the ageing population is more advanced than in NZ.
“Some are facing the breakdown of traditional social structures and networks that have historically cared for older generations,” Maxwell said in the statement. “All are asking the question ‘what is the role of government versus individual responsibility in providing a good retirement? And how do we prepare our retirees of the future?”
Keynote speakers at the CFFC-hosted event include Ida Rademacher, from the Washington-based Aspen Institute, and Elsa Fornero, “who pushed through austerity measures, including pension reform, as Italy’s former high profile Labour Minister”.
Meanwhile, Binu Paul, founder of online KiwiSaver comparison tool SavvyKiwi, has confirmed November 10 as the date for the inaugural ‘Finnotec’ conference.
With Auckland’s Hilton Hotel the likely venue, Paul said the conference would cover issues such as robo-advice, insurance technology, digital client acquisition tools and ‘virtual’ currencies.
He said the line-up of speakers would include representatives from government, regulators and a range of fin-tech firms.