Stewardship

Engaging and voting as stewards of people and planet

While we have one-on-one conversations with companies to discuss ad-hoc sustainability topics, such as positive impact and alignment with our minimum standards, we also follow a formal engagement agenda.

For the period 2023-2025, this engagement agenda includes four main topics:

Climate change

The goal of this project is to encourage our portfolio companies to set science-based emission targets, in line with the 1.5°C trajectory, as set out by the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi).

Executive remuneration

We promote balanced and fair remuneration policies and practices by limiting excessive CEO pay and reducing the pay gap in listed companies. We engage with portfolio companies where we see significant room for improvement in remuneration, aiming to reduce the pay gap in companies, achieve concrete improvements regarding disclosure, transparency, responsiveness, risk-taking, pay for performance, and create awareness of the relationship between inequality and remuneration systems.

Plastics and packaging

Extensive use of plastic has a detrimental effect on our environment, the climate, biodiversity, human rights and public health, and cleaning up the aftermath is an overwhelming task. Through our engagement we aim to improve the criteria used to evaluate plastic reduction ambition, phase out hazardous additives in virgin packaging, and reduce the use of types of plastics that are not recyclable and disrupt the effectiveness of recycling systems. We initially focus on companies in the consumer staples and packaging industries (14 companies now).

Family-friendly work policies

Family-friendly work policies are crucial for the development of both children and parents. They contribute to both an inclusive and healthy society. Evidence shows that the first 1,000 days of life have a lasting effect on a child’s future. We engage with all Triodos Future Generations Fund investees to create a family-friendly workplace, with policies such as paid parental leave, flexible working hours, facilitation of breastfeeding and childcare support.

We engage with companies and institutions to drive positive change. Where appropriate, we discuss governance, environmental and social issues relevant to their specific business models.

These discussions often already take place before a company is added to the investable universe, as we assess companies quantitatively and qualitatively for their contribution to our sustainable transition themes and alignment with our minimum standards. Given our robust impact investment criteria, we only select companies that drive positive change. This allows us to have an open, constructive dialogue to understand their business proposition and sustainability challenges more deeply. Only if a company has breached or is nearing a breach of our investment criteria will our engagement become more forceful, and, if deemed unsuccessful, the company will be divested.

Direct company engagement

We have one-on-one conversations with companies to discuss sustainability topics that are important to us as an impact investor. We explore companies’ perspectives, policies, and business practices around our transition themes and minimum standards to understand the depth of their commitments to long-term positive impact. We use a variety of methods to connect with companies, including on-site visits, conference calls, letters, and email.

Collaborative and industry engagement

We believe that sustainability challenges cannot be solved alone. We therefore also participate in joint engagement initiatives alongside other institutional investors. Together with professional associations, public policy makers, legislators, regulators, industry bodies and other relevant stakeholders (NGOs, international organisations, etc.) we strive to shape an environment in which companies and investors can operate more sustainably. Collaborative engagement increases the visibility of the topics being discussed and expands the overall power of our engagement activities.

Proxy voting

We vote in-person or by proxy for all investments in which we hold voting shares. As we do not believe in a one-size-fits-all approach, we consider resolutions always within the context a company is operating in. Applying our company-wide vision for sustainability, we vote the same for all shares we hold in a company, across all funds and portfolios. Please see our Proxy Voting Guidelines. Below, you can find our full voting records, including how votes were cast and the reasons for any opposition to management. We inform all investees of our decisions to stimulate awareness.

Voting records

As of January 2022, we have changed to Glass Lewis as proxy voting advisor. Glass Lewis is very capable of implementing the Triodos Proxy Voting Guidelines into their voting advise, which is provided to the research team of the Impact Equities and Bonds funds. In addition, Glass Lewis has very good IT capabilities that enable Triodos to execute proxy voting and reporting efficiently, with extensive proxy voting reports and the possibility to distinguish between funds. Find our voting records as of January 2022 here.

Our voting records prior to 2022 can be found here.

Read more about our engagement activities