News from our organization

Year 2021

26 November 2021: Vegan Finance LLC answered to the public consultation on the EU Animal welfare rules. Our answers can be downloaded here. Please feel free to copy and/or adjust them. The consultation is opened also to non-EU participants, individuals or organizations. Answering to the consultation takes about 15 minutes. It requires creating an account but this can be made quickly and automatically through your Facebook, Twitter or Google account.

NB: from the first page, click on the yellow button “Go to consultation”, then it opens another page, then click on the yellow button “Respond to the questionnaire”.

07 July 2021: Vegan Finance LLC answered to the TCFD public consultation on Climate-related Metrics, Targets, and Transition Plans.

Vegan Finance LLC strongly agreed the following changes: the term “carbon-related assets” should be expanded to agriculture and food groups); banks, asset managers, and asset owners should disclose financed emissions. VF recommended two additional metrics:
1/ Investments in livestock farming should be disclosed since livestock farming accounts for 14.5% of Global Emissions. (disclosure of shares, absolute value, targets, historical performance)
2/ Harmful impact on biodiversity should be disclosed as terrestrial and marine ecosystems currently absorb roughly half of manmade carbon emissions

18 June 2021: Vegan Finance LLC participated to the VEGAN FINANCE WEBINAR organized by ESSEC business school “From Animal Welfare Awareness to Vegan Finance” : “Vegan Rating Methodology and Challenges”.

January 2021: Vegan Finance LLC is very pleased to welcome a new volunteer that will help to analyze and rate US listed companies from the S&P500.

Year 2020

August 2020: In a public consultation Vegan Finance LLC has proposed to the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) a list of mandatory indicators and metrics that include the following themes:

  • Improvement of animal welfare (free-cage, testing,…)
  • Reduction of pesticides
  • Reduction of intensive agriculture
  • Reduction of fish farming
  • Reduction of all forms of fossil energies (liquid, gaseous, and solid)
  • Reduction of nuclear energies
  • Technical details to avoid greenwashing practices
  • Biodiversty protection
  • Plant-based products
  • Alternatives to animal testing
  • Innovations in animal-welfare

Our detailed response to the EU is here and now on ESMA website page dedicated to SFDR (Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation). Please feel free to contact us at contact@veganfinance.org if you have any question. For more information about the related-to-animals answers fom Asset Managers and Instutional Investors to the SFDR consultation, please see the World News section.

May 18th, 2020: published article on Vegan Finance LLC “Ratings from a vegan perspective” by Asset News (AGEFI) at this link or you can find here a pdf version of this article.

Year 2018

January 29th, 2018: Vegan Finance response to Public Consultation of the SASB on their standards. We have communicated:

  • Arguments to include Animal-welfare topic
  • Proposal of animal-related metrics

All public Comments on the Exposure Draft Standards are here.

Note: The SASB standards identify material issues that are reasonably likely to impact the financial or operating performance of a company and therefore are most important to investors.

October, 2018: 10 months after the SASB public consultation, the new version of the SASB standards incorporates animal-welfare criteria. For instance, the “Meat, Poultry and Dairy” industry should be screened with the following metrics:

  • Percentage of pork produced without the use
    of gestation crates
  • Percentage of cage-free shell egg sales
  • Percentage of production certified to a third-party
    animal welfare standard

Sources: SASB materiality map, SASB standards