Liontrust Sustainable Investment Annual Review 2022 - Flipbook - Page 29
Our approach to engagement and voting
Engagement is integral to how our Sustainable Investment team
ensures it invests in high-quality companies. Engaging gives us
greater insight and helps to identify such leading companies but
is also used as a lever to encourage better practices, challenging
and encouraging them to proactively manage their business for the
benefit of long-term shareholder value.
We meet companies face to face but also correspond through emails,
calls and letters. Depending on the specific issue, our interaction with
a company might include senior management, sustainability teams
or experts within the organisation. We also engage collaboratively
with other investors on initiatives that are aligned with the Liontrust
Sustainable Investment team’s engagement priorities and where we
believe we are more likely to succeed collectively. In some instances,
we lend our support to collaborative initiatives that can include
targeting companies not held in our funds.
The team also conducts considered annual voting for companies
held in the SF funds and we are very active owners. Our voting
policy is publicly available and our voting decisions and rationale
are also disclosed.
We record our engagement with companies, monitor our success
and report on our activities to clients. In 2022, we engaged with
155 companies and raised 285 ESG issues; about two-thirds were
related to proactive initiatives and the remaining third to reactive
issues.
Our team made 106 specific requests for change, and we have
so far identified that 40% of these have been either actioned or
committed to by companies. We will be following up on outstanding
requests that have not yet been actioned over the course of 2023.
2022 Annual Engagement Summary Table
Total number of ESG issues raised (E, S, G)
282
with 155 companies
Environmental
60
Social
121
Governance issues
75
Corporate Governance
29
ESG issues raised - Priority initiatives
180
63%
ESG issues raised - Reactive engagement
105
37%
# Strategy/financial issues raised
198 issues raised with
135 companies
# Total E, S, G + S/F raised
483 issues raised with
228 companies
We enagaged with
155
companies
Our team made
106
We raised
285
Key ESG issues
specific requests for change
Liontrust Sustainable Investment: Annual Review 2022 - 29