Liontrust Sustainable Investment Annual Review 2022 - Flipbook - Page 33
2022 Initiative
Description
We said we would:
Increasing
corporate
diversity
We believe companies
• Step up pressure by
that are more diverse are
voting against a wider
better able to prosper
set of companies
over the long term,
where there is a lack
so we are engaging
of ethnic diversity.
to encourage greater
diversity. We are looking • Look at gender and
ethnic pay gap data
at gender and ethnic
for investee companies
balance at a board
and engage on action
level, senior positions
plans to address
and within the workforce,
imbalances.
as well as at efforts to
increase transparency
• Find and encourage
and reduce pay gaps.
best practice examples
of wider D&I policies
and practices, such
as LGBQT+ and
neurodiversity.
In 2022:
In 2023, we will:
• We did not successfully • Look for data gaps
incorporate analysis
within the set of
of gender or ethnic
investee companies
pay gaps into our
that participated in the
sustainability assessment
Workforce Disclosure
of companies routinely
Initiative within our
as planned.
Worker Wellbeing
proactive engagement
• We were able to
initiative.
support this re-election
of the chair of the
• Continue to engage
Nomination Committee
with and/or use voting
for five companies
rights to encourage
that we were unable
greater board diversity
to support last year
where it is lacking.
due to a lack of board
gender diversity. These
were American Tower,
Helios Towers, IQVIA,
Knorr- Bremse and
L&G.
• We voted against
the re-election of
the chair of the
Nomination Committee
at the AGMs of two
companies that did
not have at least one
ethnic director and
abstained on the same
vote at the AGMs of
three companies.
In 2021, we increased our voting threshold from 30% to 33% for
female boards and continued to see good progress on increased
representation. Following on from this, in 2022, we voted against
the chair of the Nomination Committee due to a lack of gender
diversity on the board of nine companies and withheld support on
re-election for a further one company. This means we voted against
or withheld support on 8% of a total of 133 votable meetings due
to a lack of gender diversity. We voted against the same resolution
due to a lack of ethnic diversity on the board of five companies
over the year. Overall, we have now targeted 41 companies where
board gender diversity was lacking between 2016 to 2022. Of
Board gender diversity
Improved and now have over
33% female representation
Number of companies
these, we have seen some good progress; 28 companies now
have over 33% female representation on the board, going from an
average of just 20% females on the board prior to us voting on this
issue, to 41% after continued voting.
A further eight companies improved from an average of 20% to 27%
female representation and five companies have not yet made progress.
We note that over this time there has been continued scrutiny of boards
lacking diversity and other investors pushing for change but see this as
meaningful in terms of the level of oversight and reduction in the risk of
‘group think’ within investee companies’ boards.
Average % of women on Board
(before we introduced our
Average % of women on Board
voting policy)
(after 2022 AGM)
28 (70%)
20%
41%
Improved but still under 33%
female representation on Board
8 (20%)
20%
27%
Did not improve
5 (13%)
25%
25%
Liontrust Sustainable Investment: Annual Review 2022 - 33