Our approach to stewardship
Stewardship is a core part of our approach to responsible investment. We believe that building relationships and working with companies can help deliver better outcomes for our customers’ money and drive the change needed for us to move towards a more sustainable world.
The two main ways that we put stewardship into action are:
- Voting – we ask our asset managers to vote on our behalf in line with our voting principles (PDF). This can include appointments to a board of directors, structural changes to a company, executive pay and compensation, a proposed merger or acquisition, as well as other issues which might have an impact on a company’s performance
- Advocacy and engagement – we ask our asset managers to engage with and positively influence the companies they invest in on behalf of our customers.
Our asset manager partners and stewardship
Royal London Asset Management (opens in a new window) manages just under 90% of our customers' pension assets through our Governed Range.
Royal London Asset Management and the other asset managers we work with are signatories of the UN Principles of Responsible Investment and/or the UK Stewardship Code. We're also signatories of both of these codes.
UN Principles for Responsible Investment
This set of six Principles, developed by a network of international investors, reflects the view that the integration of environmental, social and corporate governance (ESG) issues into investment management can have a positive impact on investment performance.
UK Stewardship Code (2020)
This aims to set high standards of stewardship for asset owners and asset managers, such as Royal London Asset Management.
Voting and engagement in action
Royal London Asset Management takes its responsibilities as a shareholder on behalf of us and our customers seriously. Its Responsible Investment team actively engages with companies in line with its Global and UK voting policies (open in a new window), with the aim of influencing and creating change that will help to deliver better long-term outcomes for our customers and the wider world.
In 2022, Royal London Asset Management voted on 43,348 resolutions at 3,534 meetings, and engaged with 393 companies. Climate, health and governance were our top engagement activities. Our voting activity included topics such as board related resolutions, compensation and shareholder proposals.
You can find out more about Royal London Asset Management’s voting approach on its website, including full historic voting records in its voting database (opens in a new window).