The new tool is available here and is designed to help asset owners in testing and assessing the extent to which their investment managers’ investment stewardship activities are in line with their own stewardship expectations. This is principally achieved by referencing their own responsible investment beliefs and stewardship expectations and comparing them to the voting and engagement activities of their investment managers.
Mette Charles, Sustainability Research Lead at Aon, said: “The Asset Owner Investment Stewardship Alignment Tool is designed to bring greater clarity and structure to conversations between asset owners and their investment managers. By focusing on voting and engagement in an applied way, it helps asset owners assess whether stewardship activities are genuinely aligned with their own beliefs and expectations and provides practical suggestions where gaps emerge.”
Cadi Thomas, Head of Sustainable Investment, ICSWG co-chair, at Isio, said: “As regulation and market practice around investment stewardship evolves, asset owners are facing increasing expectations that stewardship activities are meaningful, well-governed, and aligned with their fiduciary duties. The new ICSWG tool provides a structured framework, using a practical flow chart that guides asset owners through an assessment of their managers’ proxy voting decisions and engagement activity, and determines how closely those resonate with their own investment stewardship beliefs and approach.”
Stephen Miles Head of Sustainable Investing at WTW Investments, said: “The Investment Stewardship Alignment Tool also helps asset owners consider their investment managers’ stewardship approaches as compared to say, the Principles for Responsible Investment pathways, and can complement other industry tools. Together, these resources are intended to support more informed conversations between asset owners and investment managers on stewardship services.”
Claire Jones, Head of Responsible Investment at LCP, said: “The ground-breaking 2024 paper by the Financial Markets Law Committee (FMLC) about fiduciary duties said, in relation to stewardship, that “Pension fund trustees will wish to have processes for the proper communication of their stewardship expectations and proper oversight of the investment managers’ work to reassure themselves of its effectiveness in mitigating risks and supporting returns”. The ICSWG tool is designed to help trustees with this monitoring process through helping them assess and improve the alignment of their investment managers’ stewardship with their own expectations and beliefs.”
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