2019 Breckinridge Sustainability Report - Report - Page 14
OUR ADVOCACY COMMITMENT
We aim to support causes that are striving
to advance sustainability.
At Breckinridge, we believe that advocacy helps build broad awareness
of important ESG concerns, which in turn can lead to greater market
responsiveness to pressing ESG matters such as climate and water risks,
reporting transparency and corporate ethics. We also believe that advocacy,
along with maintaining and contributing to partnerships with ESG experts, helps
us to be better investors by helping to mitigate long-term risks facing our bond
issuers—to the benefit of our clients.
We view advocacy as an important part of our sustainability efforts. We support
organizations that are advocating for system-level improvements; doing so
underscores our commitment to advancing ESG research and related efforts,
and further embeds sustainability into our corporate culture. By supporting
and partnering with industry-leading organizations, we aim to create long-term
value for our clients and the investor community.
To ensure structured and consistent consideration of advocacy opportunities,
Breckinridge’s Sustainability Committee reviews, deliberates and thoughtfully
decides on all advocacy requests. We continue to implement our advocacy policy
established in 2017 to govern our approach. The policy aims to make sure that
all advocacy decisions align with our goals and our clients’ best interests.
For 2018, our advocacy efforts largely centered on climate risk. As investors, we
believe it is prudent to closely monitor and consider climate change trends. It is
our belief that bond issuers will be increasingly challenged in the future due to
climate change risk, which may prompt new regulations on carbon emissions,
extreme weather events and constraints on raw materials. We are also hearing
more interest from investors in divesting from fossil fuels.
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