NYSE Euronext today announced that it has joined the United Nations' Sustainable Stock Exchanges (SSE) initiative, which aims to explore how exchanges can work together with investors, regulators, and companies to enhance corporate transparency on Environmental, Social and Corporate Governance (ESG) issues and encourage responsible long-term approaches to investment.
"As the only carbon neutral global exchange group, we are proud to join the SSE initiative and partner with the UN and our industry to support best practices in corporate governance and transparency related to corporate sustainability," said Duncan L. Niederauer, CEO of NYSE Euronext. "We lead by example by running our business in an environmentally responsible manner, and by leveraging the unique power of our platform and our NYSE Euronext community, we empower learning and collaboration within the broader corporate sector."
This commitment further demonstrates NYSE Euronext's leadership in this arena. In 2012, NYSE Euronext achieved carbon-neutral status for the third year in a row, again making it the only global exchange operator to do so. In the same year, the company was also named to CDP's S&P 500 Carbon Performance Leadership Index and received a Green Power Leadership Award from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). For a number of years, the company has also been named to several key sustainability indices, including CDP's S&P 500 Disclosure Leadership Index, the Dow Jones Sustainability Index and FTSE4Good, and is a member of the EPA's Green Power Partnership.
As a global exchange group home to the world's leading companies, NYSE Euronext's leadership in Corporate Responsibility and Sustainability serves as a resource to its global community of listed companies and stakeholders in their sustainability efforts. NYSE-Listed companies make up 87% of both CDP's S&P 500 Disclosure Leadership Index and the Dow Jones Sustainability Index. To further support its global community, in partnership with leading organizations such as the CDP and Global Reporting Initiative (GRI), each year NYSE Euronext hosts workshops and forums that bring together sustainability executives from various companies to share ideas on best practices to mitigate their organization's environmental impacts.
To commemorate this occasion, today NYSE Euronext will host an event where senior executives from NYSE-Listed companies and sustainability professionals will join leaders from the United Nations', academia and non-profit organizations at the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) to discuss best practices in promoting sustainability within our capital markets. Remarks will be given by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and New York State Comptroller Thomas P. DiNapoli, who has shown enormous leadership on these issues. Following the forum, both guests will join NYSE Euronext CEO Duncan L. Niederauer in ringing the NYSE closing bell.