Liontrust engagement and voting report 2021 - Flipbook - Page 17
Collective engagement
CDP
In 2021, Liontrust participated in both the CDP (formerly the Carbon
Disclosure Project) non-disclosure and Science Based Target
Initiative campaigns. CDP is a not-for-profit charity that runs the
global disclosure system for investors and companies to manage
their environmental impacts. The world’s economy looks to CDP
as the gold standard of environmental reporting with the richest
and most comprehensive dataset on corporate action. Liontrust has
supported CDP’s campaign since 2018.
Liontrust acknowledges with thanks when a company starts to
disclose its climate data via the CDP reporting platform and intends
to take a more proactive stance for the 2022 campaign, requesting
companies with material water usage and extensive forest resource
usage to report appropriate data on how efficiently these resources
are managed.
Workforce Disclosure Initiative (WDI) Survey
The Workforce Disclosure Initiative (WDI) was set up by ShareAction
and funded by the UK’s Department for International Development. The
WDI investor coalition is made up of 68 institutions, with $10 trillion
in assets under management. The initiative requests that companies
disclose more information on how they manage their global workforce
practices. The survey asks for improved data on issues such as diversity,
workers’ rights and health and safety in supply chains. The longer-term
aim of the initiative is to be the go-to point of information in the same
way as the CDP, but for the ‘S’ in ESG.
As part of Liontrust’s commitment as an investor signatory to the
WDI, we directly contacted 82 investee companies to request they
respond to the 2021 survey. Of these, 32 have now completed
the survey. Three of our holdings – Standard Chartered, St. James’s
Place and Puma – received WDI awards for their disclosures.
Other progress
In 2021, Liontrust built a bespoke platform for recording engagement
activities and outcomes. This aids enhanced reporting for clients and
allows investment teams to assign engagement activities to individuals.
During the year, the Sustainable Investment team and the
Stewardship Manager piloted the platform to ensure functionality.
In 2022, all fund managers will be encouraged to use the system
to track their engagements with companies and identify if any ESG
matters were discussed.
UN PRI Just Transition
We continue to participate in the UN PRI Just Transition Investor
Working Group, which highlights to investors how important the
social dimension is in the energy transition to an ultra-low carbon
economy, including staff, customers and broader community groups.
We have worked with external parties to enhance our expertise.
In particular, Carbon Tracker and Industry Tracker added areas of
focus for our engagements with our highest-emitting companies.
Carbon Tracker also provided a series of training sessions to fund
managers over the year as we aimed to improve the ability of our
teams to understand the impact of the transition on their investee
companies. In 2022, Carbon Tracker will deliver training to the
Liontrust Board on climate change.
Transition to Sustainable Investment
We continue to educate investors and the market on sustainable
investment by providing presentations for financial intermediaries as
part of their ongoing training (Continuing Professional Development).
These included presentations at ESG events organised by SimplyBiz,
one of the largest IFA networks in the UK, which were attended by
hundreds of advisers. This is in addition to ad hoc presentations of
this type to intermediary clients and prospects.
Liontrust promotes responsible investment in the market through
involvement in various initiatives that will be discussed in our 2021
FRC Stewardship Code compliance statement response.
Liontrust: Engagement and Voting Report 2021 - 17