[ACNS, by Staff Writer] The Head of Responsible Investment for the Church Commissioners, the financial arm of the Church of England, is to leave his post to take up a new role as Director of Engagement and Impact Reporting for a new global ethical investment group. Generation Investment Management was founded by former US Vice President Al Gore to encourage and support sustainable investments.
Edward Mason joined the Church Commissioners 11 years ago as Secretary to the Ethical Investment Advisory Group, which is responsible for developing ethical investment policy and practices for the Church of England’s national investing bodies, before being appointed head of responsible investment for the Church Commissioners in 2014.
Since then Edward has led the Commissioners’ implementation of their ambition to be at the forefront of global responsible investment. He developed their responsible investment framework and led the Commissioners' work on environmental, social and corporate governance integration.
Notable successes include global engagement on climate strategy and disclosure at oil and gas supermajor, Exxon. The company now discloses 2-degree scenario analysis every year, an outcome that won Edward the Stewardship Champion at the inaugural International Corporate Governance Network awards in 2018. And successful engagement with the world’s largest asset manager, BlackRock, resulted in them joining Climate Action 100+ earlier this year.
“Edward has been an outstanding team member and our reputation in responsible investment and everything we have achieved is in no small part due to Edward”, the Church Commissioners’ Chief Investment Officer, Tom Joy, said. “We are incredibly grateful to Edward for everything he has done for us. He will go with our very best wishes for the future. We are fortunate he has outstanding team members who we know will continue our work in this important area.”