London - Global index provider FTSE Group today announces a new, more stringent set of human rights criteria for the socially responsible index series FTSE4Good, as part of its ongoing strategy to raise the standards for entry into the index series. The enhanced criteria means companies will have to raise their human rights standards, beginning in September 2003, to qualify for the index series.

FTSE Group undertook a broad public human rights consultation during 2002, the first of its kind, with almost 200 responses from corporations, fund managers, non-government organisations and private investors. These responses formed the basis of the new criteria.
Companies operating in the Global Resource Sector must meet the higher human rights criteria by September 2003. Companies with significant involvement in high-risk countries, as defined by the Ethical Investment Research Service (EIRIS), must meet higher human rights standards starting March 2004. In addition to this, the FTSE4Good Advisory Committee intend to announce in March 2004 an implementation timetable for all companies, regardless of sector or geography, to have a basic human rights policy in place.

Chris Marsden, Chair of the Amnesty International (UK) Business Group said: “We welcome the new FTSE4Good criteria and FTSE’s role in helping to put human rights on the business agenda. Clearly a lot of companies will have to work hard to meet these criteria.”

Will Oulton, Deputy Chief Executive FTSE Group said: “The enhancement to the human rights criteria for the FTSE4Good index series is the second major revision since it was launched in July 2001. The environmental criteria were the first to be revised and following an extensive engagement programme, the majority of companies made significant improvements to meet the criteria. We are confident that by working closely with companies to help them understand the enhancements to the human rights criteria we will again see significant steps made to improve standards.”

Over time the FTSE4Good Advisory Committee will also extend the higher requirements to other specific sectors, in addition to the Global Resource Sector announced today.

For a list of high-risk countries and full details of the human rights criteria go to www.ftse.com

Notes to Editors
About FTSE

FTSE Group is a world-leader in the creation and management of indices. With offices in London, Frankfurt, Hong Kong, Madrid, Paris, New York, San Francisco and Tokyo, FTSE Group services clients in 77 countries worldwide. It manages and develops globally recognised indices ranging from the FTSE All-World Index to the FTSE 100, the FTSE4Good indices and the recently launched FTSE Global Style Index Series. The company has collaborative arrangements with the Athens, Cyprus, Euronext, Johannesburg, London, Luxembourg, and Madrid exchanges, as well as with Nikkei of Japan (Nihon Keizai Shimbun, Inc) and Xinhua Financial Network of China.

FTSE indices are used extensively by investors world-wide for investment analysis, performance measurement, asset allocation, portfolio hedging and for creating a wide range of index tracking funds. Independent committees of senior fund managers, derivatives experts, actuaries and other experienced practitioners review all changes to the indices to ensure that they are made objectively and without bias. Real-time FTSE indices are calculated on systems managed by Reuters. Prices and FX rates used are supplied by Reuters.

About FTSE4Good Index Series

The FTSE4Good index series is an innovative series of real-time indices designed to reflect the performance of socially responsible equities. The series, created and managed by global index provider FTSE Group, covers four markets: UK, Europe, US and Global. Four tradable and four benchmark indices make up the FTSE4Good index series. A committee of independent practitioners in socially responsible investment, (SRI) and corporate social responsibility (CSR) review the indices to ensure that they are an accurate reflection of current CSR best practice.

FTSE Group contributes income including licence fees for FTSE4Good to UNICEF, the global charity.

FTSE Group

FTSE Group

More from FTSE Group