Louisiana Salge, head of sustainability, EQ Investors
For 2023, all eyes will be on stewardship to make sure the various asset manager commitments made in the past year regarding ending deforestation, net-zero emissions and acting on cost of living, are grounded in real-life change.
To demonstrate this, we would like to see stewardship reporting move beyond a quantitative round-up of interventions, towards a transparent milestone approach backed by an escalation strategy.
Through our engagement approaches we are nudging more asset managers to move away from a purely risk-focused approach to stewardship towards using their shareholder rights to encourage greater positive impact of their assets.
Clients will also be brought closer to the engagement process this year. Although the ultimate votes are cast by the fund managers we select, we are trying to innovate to not just oversee their activities and influence them with our thematic engagements, but extend that sight to underlying clients too.
Governance
As a B Corp, EQ Investors is set up to be managed for the benefit of all stakeholders. As part of that, we deal with the dual materiality of sustainability in respect to investments – it affects our investment performance, but our investment management affects real world sustainability achievements too.
We will keep working on helping more finance institutions change their governance structures to reflect a wider purpose for all stakeholders.