The primary purpose of SRI-CONNECT is to improve research and communications between participants in the sustainable investment and corporate governance industry globally. (We believe that individuals and their actions (rather than rules and policies) are critical to progress in our industry.)
To fulfill our objective, we collect:
- As much professional information about value chain participants (e.g. sector coverage, research interests, investment priorities etc) as we can and
- As little personal data (Name, Role, Firm, Contact Details etc) as we need to fulfil our function as an online industry network
We take our responsibilities for protecting personal data very seriously and are systematically working our way through every line of this Guide from our regulator to ensure that our policies and practices fully comply with our ambition to be wholly responsible in this area … and also that we comply with the law.
We’ve given you the link above, so that you know that everything in it is an expectation that you can have of SRI-CONNECT. We would also like to highlight four things that are particularly important to us:
- Legitimate interest: We use your personal data for the purposes that you would expect us to … and ONLY FOR THOSE PURPOSES. These are to keep you informed about research and developments in sustainable investment and corporate governance; to improve the efficiency of your engagement with the industry and to help you and your firm to build your personal and firm’s profile in this industry. We believe that, in GDPR terminology, this means we hold and use your personal data on a ‘Legitimate Interest’ lawful basis.
- Mutual best interest: We only share personal data with other industry professionals (members of the SRI-CONNECT network) where we can make a strong case that it is in the best interests of the data subject (i.e. you) as well as the data recipient (see examples below).
- Email address: We will never disclose your email address or other contact details … unless you actively choose to include them in your own SRI-CONNECT profile.
- Contact us: If there’s anything you don’t understand or are concerned about, please do contact
This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. .
Examples of how we display data
Primarily, SRI-CONNECT displays the data that is provided to us in personal profiles in the community - so that members of the industry can engage and communicate with each other on an informed basis.
However, we also produce information (for site users only) in other formats:
For example, we might produce a report for a mining company that shows them that Jenny Jenkins, Bill Smiggle and Herb Arnold cover the mining sector. The mining company can use this to invite Jenny, Bill and Herb via SRI-CONNECT to a presentation of their sustainability performance. This, we believe is beneficial to both the mining company (the data recipient) and Jenny Jenkins, Bill Smiggle and Herb Arnold (the data subjects). Importantly, because Amy Upkins does not feature in the report (because she isn’t interested in the mining sector), the company is unlikely to want to contact her. By implicitly sharing her ‘lack of interest’ we save her time as well. This is why we encourage all site users to update their professional profiles regularly.
Or, we might highlight to ABC Research how the level of SRI-CONNECT usage by its research team is / isn't enhancing their firm's profile in the global SRI/CG industry. This information is designed to inform and help both the firm and individual users to build their profile within the global SRI/CG industry. Again, beneficial to both data recipient and data subject.
... and that's about it. We may, in future, come up with other ways of using the data that you provide us with to improve …. But, you can rest assured that if we do plan to change the way that we use your data, we will check with you first that this is OK with you.
