The FCA Board decided to form the committee to work on Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) issues and is looking for expressions of interest from stakeholders to join.
The committee will provide advice to the FCA Board on issues such as how it executes oversight of ESG issues relevant to the FCA both as a regulator and its own operations, relevant emerging ESG issues, and how the FCA should develop its ESG Strategy - keeping with the organization’s statutory objectives and regulatory principles.
Currently, the FCA’s ESG Strategy operates around five core themes: transparency, trust, tools, transition, and team. FCA hopes to promote transparency on climate change and wider sustainability, build trust and integrity in ESG-labelled products, work with others to enhance industry capabilities, and support firms’ management of climate-related and wide sustainability risks.
The Committee will include a small number of external experts who have in-depth knowledge of ESG issues in the financial sector.
External experts will be appointed by the Board in a personal capacity and will need to abide by a conflict of interest policy. The FCA will ensure the committee is diverse, in line with the regulator’s commitment to promoting diversity and inclusivity within financial services.
Applications to the committee will not be recommended to people currently employed by FCA-regulated firms.
The Board will also select a Chair of the Committee and provide secretariat support.
The Committee is set to meet for the first time in Q4 2022, and continue quarterly from then on.
