Engagement progress in 2023
During 2023, we engaged with all companies in our portfolio. Sixty-eight percent of these companies responded to our communications through emails or by agreeing to arrange one-to-one meetings with company representatives, such as board members, senior executives, or specialist managers. While our 2022 focus was on meeting as many holdings as possible to explain our expectations, in 2023, we shifted our focus slightly towards companies that showed limited progress, particularly those we classified as Level 4 or 5. Notably, we exercised our voting power against the re-election of directors at four companies that were particularly unresponsive and showed slow progress. For other target companies, we organised in-depth follow-up meetings and sent detailed, tailored emails, outlining our expectations, and expressing our concerns.
We also observed some encouraging progress among our three asks. Notably, five companies successfully delivered on our asks, which we label as "wins", an increase from two in the previous year. This demonstrates that many companies are becoming more receptive to our expectations and are investing serious effort and resources into meeting them. This progress, which includes companies conducting biodiversity impact and dependency assessments across their value chains and strengthening their targets, highlights the importance of a multi-year engagement programme. Implementing the changes, we expect takes time and patience. In 2023, our total number of engagements reached 67, demonstrating our commitment to active stewardship and stakeholder collaboration in the realm of natural capital.
