Here's a summary of the 2024 Responsible Investment Report presentation, focusing on the key themes and findings:
The report highlights the crucial role of responsible investment in creating long-term value for the fund, emphasizing its extensive work across its portfolio. The fund invests in nearly 9,000 companies across 70 markets, believing that sustainable value creation hinges on companies acting responsibly and with a long-term perspective.
**Long-Term Focus:** The presentation underscores the detrimental effects of short-term pressures, particularly quarterly reporting, on long-term value creation. It can lead to decisions that hinder growth, innovation, and discourage companies from accessing public markets. The fund advocates for incentivizing long-term decision-making, with a particular focus on CEO pay. They believe the current system inadequately aligns CEO interests with shareholder value. The fund actively engages with companies and proxy advisors to promote longer-term incentives, such as stock lock-ups, and holds boards accountable through its voting. In 2023, they voted against 426 CEO pay packages that rewarded short-term gains. Examples are provided: they voted against Intel due to misalignment between pay and performance and a short-term incentive structure. Conversely, they supported Amazon's simple, transparent CEO pay package that incentivizes long-term thinking with shares paid out over 10 years.
**Climate Risk and Transition:** Climate risk is identified as a significant financial risk affecting the companies in the fund's portfolio and global economic growth. The fund is actively working towards transitioning its investment portfolio to align with its climate plan. The presentation highlights progress on ambitious targets set in 2022. Data indicates that companies with climate targets are more effective in reducing emissions. Currently, 74% of the fund's emissions portfolio are covered by science-based targets, an increase from 2023. Company dialogues are becoming richer and more focused on concrete actions. While there was a surge in mentions of transition during earnings calls followed by a slight reduction, the fund emphasizes the need for both short-term action and long-term thinking for successful value creation and a net-zero transition. Markets react negatively when companies fail to deliver on climate commitments, resulting in a drop in share prices.
**Transparency:** Transparency is presented as crucial for the fund's accountability and a cornerstone of responsible investment. The report includes extensive information on climate and nature-related topics, such as climate scenarios, net-zero target setting, implied temperature rise, climate investing exposure, and nature risks. The fund has started releasing more information throughout the year, and its website now provides daily updates on its engagement activities. The fund is also committed to transparency on challenging issues, such as companies operating in conflict zones. They have strengthened expectations for companies in these areas, emphasizing enhanced vigilance in war-affected regions. Since 2020, they have engaged with 38 companies on this topic, monitoring their progress in risk management and adherence to international standards.
**Corporate Lobbying and Voting:** Corporate lobbying is another area of focus, with the fund publishing its investor view on responsible corporate policy engagement. While lobbying is not inherently wrong, the fund wants to avoid situations where companies say one thing and do another. Climate lobbying is a key concern, with data suggesting that some companies are lobbying against their stated climate commitments, undermining their credibility and long-term value creation. The fund voted on over 100,000 resolutions in the past year and has been transparent about voting intentions since 2021, making them more accessible to the market. Their research indicates that voting against the board often leads to board renewal in subsequent years.
**Risk-Based Divestments:** The fund also uses risk-based divestments to manage its portfolio, selling shares in companies with unsustainable business models. They divested from 49 companies last year and reversed 16 divestment decisions due to improved practices. These decisions have generated significant financial returns, with climate risk-related divestments contributing substantially to the overall gains.