Corporate social responsibility 2020 - Flipbook - Page 12
INDUSTRIENS PENSIONSFORSIKRING A/S
RAPPORT OM SAMFUNDSANSVAR 2020
ACTIVE OWNERSHIP
Active ownership
Active ownership is an important tool to
understand and influence the companies in
which we invest. Furthermore, through active
ownership, we are able to promote companies’
long-term value creation and sustainable
development. We take a risk-based approach,
meaning that we prioritise our efforts on where
we have the largest investments and where the
consequences of potential or actual adverse
impacts on society are greatest.
We collaborate with Federated Hermes EOS
(Equity Ownership Services), a British
consultancy firm, which screens our portfolio
every quarter to ensure that the companies in
the portfolio comply with our guidelines for
responsible investment. Our collaboration with
Federated Hermes EOS helps us to perform the
very resource-intensive and important task of
being an active investor by providing access to
highly specialised country-specific and sectorspecific expertise, while providing us with the
opportunity to cooperate with like-minded
investors.
In 2020, on behalf of Industriens Pension and
other investors, Federated Hermes EOS had 783
ESG-related dialogues with 498 companies,
focussing primarily on climate and corporate
governance issues. As part of our active
ownership, we exercised our voting rights at
general meetings in the companies through our
international cooperation partner, Hermes EOS
Federated and Institutional Shareholder
Services. Thus, in 2020, we voted on 3,274
proposals at general meetings of the companies
in the portfolio. On 356 occasions, we voted
against the management of the relevant
companies. We publish our voting activity on our
website.
Case - dialogue with Diageo
on water consumption
Diageo is a global producer and supplier of
beer and spirits. Diageo uses large quantities
of water in its production, and several of the
company’s production plants are located in
places with actual or potential water
shortages and a need to improve access to
water for local communities, for example in
Africa. On behalf of Industriens Pension,
since 2012, Federated Hermes EOS has
been in dialogue with Diageo on establishing
long-term goals to reduce the company’s
consumption of water in these areas. In
2015, the company set a goal to halve its
water consumption and counter its impact on
the local community. In 2020, Diageo had
reduced its water consumption by more than
40% using new technologies and processes,
and it had found ways to deal with its impact
on the local community.
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