Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they are taking, if any, to encourage frontier and emerging market countries to adopt environmental, social and governance standards for attracting investment into those countries and to safeguard financial returns.

The UK supports globally consistent Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) standards through the work being led by the International Sustainability Standards Board. The UK also works through our Development Finance Institution, British International Investment (BII), which plays an important role in implementing ESG standards. BII for example has a policy on Responsible Investing which sets out the environmental, social and business integrity requirements (ESG) that BII Investees are expected to meet after an investment is made.