Anne-Marie Williams


“It is important within stewardship that asset owners hold asset managers to account and that asset managers hold companies to account.” Anne-Marie Williams, ShareAction


Varco: A lot of investment consultants have depth in this area. They have ESG specialists finding ESG funds and working with ESG-focused clients. We have done a lot of work in systematically enhancing the amount of ESG institutional data we collect across asset classes. That’s a lot of education for our colleagues doing hedge fund research because they are not used to asking questions about engagement. If you have a client that’s taking this seriously, it comes down to what your adviser is doing in that space. That’s an area that was a massive enhance- ment for us in 2018.


PI: Engagement has been discussed quite a lot here, but how important is it? Thompson: The ESG debate has moved on in the past 10 years. It’s less about exclusion and more about engagement now. Engagement is part of stewardship, but it has to be engagement with teeth. You have to properly engage. An important part of our core DC portfolio, apart from having some climate tilts to reduce the carbon footprint, is the engagement policy. We wrote to the chairs of the 84 largest companies globally to warn that if after a year of engagement they have not put any decent plans in place, the fund manager will vote against your re-election.


12 May–June 2019 portfolio institutional roundtable: ESG


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