Message from the UN Secretary-General

Until recently, the role of financial markets in sustainable development was little understood and widely discounted. The Principles for Responsible Investment have helped to change this impression.

Launched in April 2006, the Principles are in essence a set of global best-practices for responsible investment. Rising numbers of institutional investors – from all regions of the world, representing more than eight trillion dollars in the first year alone – are embracing them, marking a major advance in mainstream financial markets. The Principles have quickly become the global benchmark for responsible investing.

By incorporating environmental, social and governance criteria into their investment decision-making and ownership practices, the signatories to the Principles are directly influencing companies to improve performance in these areas. This, in turn, is contributing to our efforts to promote good corporate citizenship and to build a more stable, sustainable and inclusive global economy.

The Principles complement the UN Global Compact, which asks companies to embed in their strategies and operations a set of universal principles in the areas of human rights, labour standards, the environment and anticorruption. The Principles are also a natural extension of the work of the UN Environment Programme Finance Initiative, which has helped sensitize capital markets to the importance of environmental and social issues.

The combined support of the UN Global Compact, the UNEP Finance Initiative and committed leaders from the investment community has helped to make the Principles a unique initiative that holds great promise for financial markets and for achieving a wide range of United Nations objectives. I applaud the leadership of the institutions that have committed themselves to this undertaking, and urge other investors around the world to join this historic effort.

Ban Ki-moon
UN Secretary-General