Northwestern Mutual

The financial institution has a publicly available policy statement expecting suppliers to respect the ILO core labour rights. It assigns decision-making and oversight responsibility for its sustainability strategy to the highest governance body while implementation responsibility is delegated to various functions, teams, or committees within the institution. It also monitors its Scope 1-2 emissions. However, no leading practices were identified for the financial institution with regard to Financing Climate and Nature protection and restoration and Inclusive finance.

The institution has a publicly available policy statement committing to respect specific workers’ rights but has the opportunity to reference all ILO fundamental rights at work. It can disclose how it determines a living wage in its operational regions and provide a policy statement prohibiting bribery and corruption. Furthermore, it could link performance criteria for remuneration at the senior executive level to specific sustainability targets and disclose that it monitors other scope 3 categories, by category. While the institution provides some details regarding the methodology applied in their carbon footprint calculation, it could cover all aspects including emissions coverage for each category, data types, sources for applied emission factors, and reference to applied standards.

It is recommended that the institution disclose that it has established a transition plan covering its own operations, supply chain, and portfolio and report the breakdown of clients or beneficiaries by income group. It could also clarify processes to prevent divestment from low-income and lower-middle-income countries due to its sustainability strategies and targets. Additionally, it could strengthen its disclosure by identifying the social risks associated with its financing activities in relation to net zero transition. The institution could also provide an example of actions taken in the past three years to address salient human rights issues identified through risk assessments related to its products, services, and capital.

This scorecard refers to information in English which was publicly available by July 15 2024. AuM and Total assets are stated in USD for comparability and have been calculated based on reported local currency values multiplied by applicable IMF currency converter values.