Guy’s & St Thomas’ foundation partner with CCLA to drive investor action on corporate air pollution

5 November 2024

• Leading independent health foundation Guy’s & St Thomas’ Foundation and UK’s largest charity asset manager CCLA Investment Management¹ launch consultation to drive investor action to tackle corporate air pollution.  
• Long-term exposure to air pollution has an effect equivalent to up to 43,000 adult deaths a year in the UK² and globally it accounts for about 11.3% of total deaths worldwide for women and 12.2% for men³.
• Consultation calls on investors, companies, NGOs and academics to inform the future direction of travel for investor action on air pollution. Parties can respond to the consultation here.
   

Today Guy’s & St Thomas’ Foundation and CCLA are launching a public consultation to tackle corporate air pollution through investor action.

The consultation will bring together insights from investors, companies, NGOs and academics to ultimately produce recommendations for corporate action on air pollution. It proposes an investor intervention in the form of a corporate benchmark aimed at creating transparent comparisons of companies’ management of air pollution, alongside a structured investor engagement initiative and a collective policy engagement effort.

Poor air quality has a significant impact on population health, economies and the planet:

• In 2019, the burden of long-term exposure to air pollution in the UK was an effect equivalent to between 29,000 to 43,000 deaths for adults aged 30 and over.⁴
• In the same year (2019) the global cost of health damages from PM2.5 air pollution was estimated to be US$8.1 trillion, equivalent to 6.1% of the world's GDP.⁵
• Air pollution is the second-leading global risk factor for death after high blood pressure, surpassing tobacco use and poor diet.⁶  It accounts for about 11.3% of total deaths worldwide for women and 12.2% for men.⁷
• Approximately 3.8 billion workdays could be lost because of air pollution by 2060.⁸

Companies are major contributors to air pollution. Sectors such as energy, construction, transport, and agriculture have an outsized impact, but all companies impact air quality in some form, for example through haulage, business travel and commuting. The new consultation will initially focus on companies involved in on-road transport which was, for example, the largest source of NO2 and the second largest source of PM2.5 and PM10 in the UK in 2022⁹, and where there is significant scope to take action to reduce emissions.   Given that company vehicles account for 15% of the UK’s total vehicle share in 2024, including 52% of buses, coaches, HGVs and LGVs¹⁰, there is the potential to considerably reduce emissions from on-road company vehicles.

Businesses are also uniquely placed to take action to reduce air pollution. Organisations that reduce their air pollution footprint and embrace cleaner technologies could position themselves better for future growth and regulatory changes. Companies that fail to actively address air pollution impacts could increasingly face regulatory penalties, rising costs, shareholder activism, and declining consumer trust.

The new consultation, conducted by Chronos Sustainability, invites comment from asset owners, asset managers, companies, non-profit organisations, government agencies, and academics with expertise in air quality. The partnership is calling on organisations to take part in the consultation to determine what steps can be taken to tackle corporate air pollution.

The consultation opens today for responses until 17th December. It is anticipated that a summary of the findings from the consultation will be published by early February 2025.

The consultation is part of a 10-year philanthropic programme for Guy’s & St Thomas’ Foundation to tackle poor air quality in major urban areas.

Matt Lomas, Engagement Director—Investment, at Guy’s & St Thomas’ Foundation’s endowment, said:

The air we breathe matters for all of us. Air quality should be a concern for investors given the impact poor air quality has on people, planet and increasingly businesses as companies’ contributions become more understood. We know that by working together as investors we can work with companies to reduce their negative impacts on the environment and health.

Alongside CCLA we are calling on investors and businesses to come together to put air pollution on their sustainability agendas. We believe that via collaboration we can take meaningful action, and in doing so, have a significant positive impact for people and planet as well as business resilience.

CCLA’s focus on air pollution builds on its other initiatives designed to improve corporate sustainability through investor engagement including climate action and related environmental challenges, as well as other health-related issues including nutrition and obesity, among others.

Amy Browne, Director of Stewardship, CCLA said:

Healthy businesses, and by extension strong investment returns, require healthy communities and a thriving environment. Air pollution threatens both human and planetary health and is a sustainability blind spot for many investors.

“As responsible stewards of our clients’ capital, we have a duty to encourage investee companies to minimise their negative impacts on people and the environment, so we jumped at the opportunity to partner with Guy’s and St Thomas’ Foundation on this important initiative. Our aim is to mobilise the investment community into action and to bring down the level of toxic pollution in the air that we breathe, the communities in which we live and in the habitats that produce our food and protect nature’s bounty.