Brunel Pension Partnership’s Responsible Investment & Stewardship Outcomes Report, published towards the end of May, reveals the pool’s work to improve data and reporting, harness industry co-ordination on key themes, influence public policy, maximise its engagement and voting impact and improve its portfolio exposures.
Vaishnavi Ravishankar, head of stewardship at Brunel Pension Partnership, said: “The many examples in this report highlight our continued commitment to work in partnership with our managers and peers to raise the bar on impactful stewardship.
“Stewardship by its nature isn’t high profile. It occurs during regular meetings and through diligence of approach, and it is great to have this annual opportunity to demonstrate the impacts it had in 2023.”
Demonstrations of the way Brunel voted on key topics are cited throughout the report and provide insight into important thematic votes such as on WH Group or on the National Grid.
The report provides examples of the impact and real-world change brought about by Brunel’s responsible investment (RI) approach.
This includes tackling climate change from what Brunel calls “all angles”, with 600-plus companies engaged on climate and 83%, and nearly £1bn, in committed capital to infrastructure in sustainable themes.
Brunel has also been busy collaborating with client funds to engage with companies on physical climate risk and biodiversity.
Interestingly, Brunel has also introduced the use of artificial intelligence into its stewardship evaluation.
Faith Ward (pictured), chief responsible investment officer at Brunel, said: “Our primary purpose is to provide assurance to our partnership funds and their beneficiaries that we are fulfilling our fiduciary obligations through exercising the highest standard of stewardship across all RI themes – themes that are themselves firmly linked to the key systemic risks facing investors.”
The first theme Brunel will be highlighting in the coming weeks is climate change, which the pool links to fiduciary duty, but also forms the focus of its upcoming Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures.
In addition, in June, the pool will share its Climate Progress Report, which demonstrates how it measured up against the climate change policy 2023-2030 targets that it set last year.
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