We have expanded the list of climate policies we assess company engagement with to incorporate land-use related policy, referring to legislative or regulatory measures to enhance and protect ecosystems and land where carbon is being stored. Assessments under this category are currently underweighted in terms of their contribution to the overall company metrics. This weighting will be progressively increased over the next 6 months.
We adjusted the terminology used to describe the queries running down the left-hand side of our scoring matrix and added additional explanatory text to the info-boxes. This has no impact on the scores and methodology. It has been done following user feedback to improve clarity.
In this section, we depict graphically the relationships the corporation has with trade associations, federations, advocacy groups and other third parties who may be acting on their behalf to influence climate change policy. Each of the columns above represents one relationship the corporation appears to have with such a third party. In these columns, the top, dark section represents the strength of the relationship the corporation has with the influencer. For example if a corporation's senior executive also held a key role in the trade association, we would deem this to be a strong relationship and it would be on the far left of the chart above, with the weaker ones to the right. Click on these grey shaded upper sections for details of these relationships. The middle section contains a link to the organization score details of the influencer concerned, so you can see the details of its climate change policy influence. Click on the middle sections for for details of the trade associations. The lower section contains the organization score of that influencer, the lower the more negatively it is influencing climate policy.
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Berkshire Hathaway does not appear to have engaged on sustainable finance regulation. Berkshire Hathaway’s insurance and reinsurance business is conducted through subsidiaries, including GEICO, Berkshire Hathaway Primary Group, and Berkshire Hathaway Reinsurance Group, all of which consist of smaller insurance and reinsurance subsidiaries. According to Berkshire Hathaway’s 2021 shareholder letter, Berkshire effectively owns 100% of these insurance and reinsurance operations.
Berkshire Hathaway’s insurance and reinsurance subsidiaries appear mostly silent on climate and sustainable finance, but a 2021 blog post from reinsurance subsidiary General Re appears to support some action on climate change, albeit with an unclear level of ambition.
Berkshire Hathaway’s website and the websites of its insurance and reinsurance subsidiaries do not appear to contain information about sustainable finance policies. The 2021 blog post from General Re describes some ongoing climate-related financial regulation, including the EU’s Non-Financial Reporting Directive and the EU Taxonomy Regulation, but does not appear to take a position on these regulations.
Berkshire Hathaway does not appear to have taken a position on policies to incorporate ESG factors into investor duties, however, in 2021 CEO Warren Buffett stated his opposition to using climate change as the basis for investment decisions.
Berkshire Hathaway and its insurance and reinsurance subsidiaries have not disclosed any positions on sustainable finance policies. Similarly, the companies have not disclosed trade association membership.