Thematic Engagement

Our expertise

A key part of our approach to active ownership is thematic engagement. We use thematic engagements to focus on specific social, environmental and governance themes where we believe these can support our investment decisions and help increase the likelihood for material outcomes.

Human capital

The focus of our engagement is on businesses providing and promoting decent work. This includes a focus on workforce composition and labor rights. Through engagement, we encourage global companies to ensure appropriate workforce composition, make positive change and commit to improve policies, practices and disclosures where needed.

Human rights

Our human rights engagement focuses on successful implementation of the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs), which provides guidance on how to identify, remediate, prevent and mitigate human rights issues.

Safety and quality

The focus of our health engagement is on products and services that contribute to a healthier society. In our engagements we aim for investee companies to improve their nutrition policies, practices and publicly disclose, as evidenced by the results of their assessment against the Access to Nutrition Index (ATNI) framework.

Climate change

We engage with the world's most emission intensive companies, encouraging and assisting them in adopting transition plans and achieving emission reductions aligned with a net-zero pathway. This assessment is guided by market-leading standards along with various sector-specific standards. We use our detailed assessments to inform our evidence-based engagements with companies and provide valuable company and sector-level insights to our investment teams.

Natural capital

We believe biodiversity loss and degradation pose significant financial risks. Through our planet program, we are committed to engaging issuers on biodiversity loss and restoring natural ecosystems. Our engagement on natural capital risks and opportunities focuses on three areas: forests, water, and the climate-biodiversity nexus.

Our approach to thematic governance engagements

We believe that strong governance drives corporate behavior and can lead to effective policies and business practices regarding environmental, social and governance issues. Given our investment teams' decades-long commitment to corporate governance, we understand that such matters, when managed well, may lead to both better corporate performance and improved shareholder value over the long term.

Governance

Governance

We expect companies to report promptly, accurately, and comprehensively on all governance and business matters, including ESG issues. Underlying our voting principles we have two fundamental objectives:

To act in the best financial interests of our clients to enhance the long-term value of their investments.
To promote best practice in the Boardroom in the interests of our investee companies.

Clear and effective disclosure allows investors to monitor companies and their operations, practices, and policies effectively.

What we expect from our investees

Through our Active Ownership activities, we aim to address some of the most pressing environmental, social and governance issues facing investors and investees.

For each of our sub-topics, we set out our expectations to the investee companies in order to encourage their development of best-in-class policies, practices and disclosures. Our expectations are based on industry standards and internationally recognized guidelines and principles. You can find links to these expectations below.