On the go: The £39.4bn Pension Protection Fund has brought in new environmental, social and governance voting guidelines for its listed equity holdings, across both segregated and pooled mandates.
The introduction of the voting guidelines relates to companies' management of climate-related risks, modern slavery, board diversity in terms of gender and ethnicity, and executive committee diversity.
According to its Responsible Investment Report, the PPF engaged with 196 companies on material ESG issues and voted at almost 5,000 meetings during the year to March 31 2022. It opposed at least one resolution at 67 per cent of meetings.
The lifeboat fund also transitioned to a new equity benchmark in order to drive the reduction in the carbon exposure of its portfolio.
The PPF carried out a project to assess how closely aligned its entire portfolio is to the goals of the Paris agreement and to identify the highest priority engagement targets. The fund will now use findings from this project to develop a stewardship strategy for those high-priority targets.
Over the period, the PPF started to require regular ESG metrics from its alternatives managers.
It will now engage with managers to explore ways to improve the level and quality of ESG data disclosure for credit and private markets, identify ESG investment opportunities and develop a holistic organisational sustainability strategy as part of its three-year strategic plan.
The PPF's head of ESG Claire Curtin said: “The PPF is incredibly proud of the work and efforts highlighted in our latest responsible investing report, although we are still learning on our exciting ESG journey as we adapt to a changing world.
"We hope that this report not only highlights the progress we’ve made but provides an opportunity to share our insights and knowledge with the wider industry so that we can continue learning from each other.”
This article originally appeared on MandateWire.com
