Liontrust Sustainable Investment Engagement and Voting Annual Review 2021 - Flipbook - Page 5
2019 engagement activity
In 2019, we met with 185 companies face to face and raised
245 key ESG issues over the year, either in direct meetings or
through other forms of correspondence such as letters and emails.
Examples include
Number of times issue raised with companies
2019
2018
2017
2016
Environmental
Climate crisis, water management
29 - 12%
18 - 8%
24 - 13%
28 - 21%
Social
Supply chains, employee issues
74 - 30%
38 - 17%
29 - 16%
50 - 38%
Governance issues
ESG and impact disclosure, corporate tax
73 - 30%
84 - 37%
41 - 22%
41 - 31%
Corporate Governance
Remuneration, auditors, diversity
69 - 28%
86 - 38%
93 - 50%
12 - 9%
245
226
187
131
Number of ESG issues raised
Priority engagement initiative versus reactive engagement (2019)
Impact/SDG (including climate crisis,
sustainable plastics)
Priority initiatives
Anti-bribery & corruption
Diversity
112
46%
133
54%
Workforce well-being
Transition to sustainable investment
Reactive engagement
Controversies, ESG impacts,
supply chains, tax
On top of the examples below, we would also highlight our
quarterly engagement reports, which include specific details of the
conversations we are having with companies and how we are
challenging them to increase the pace of positive change and
manage their businesses in a proactive way. These are available
on request.
2019 CASE STUDY: DFS
As part of our continued engagement with DFS on the timber
and leather supply chain, we met with Sally Hopson, CEO
of Sofology, a subsidiary of the DFS Group, who is also the
executive responsible for the Group’s sustainability strategy.
She outlined the sustainability strategy DFS Group is
developing and launching in 2020, asking for our input. This
includes developing a leadership position on the sourcing of
timber and leather, with a key target of 100% FSC timber by
2025 (95% by 2023) and
100% recyclable and recycled
packaging by 2020.
In addition to the supply chain effort, the company is also
researching modular designs and recyclable materials to enable
a more circular product lifecycle. We believe DFS continues to
lead the sector in terms of ESG management and are proud of
our continued engagement with the company.
Meanwhile, WWF has done some analysis benchmarking this
industry in terms of its sustainable timber procurement. This kind
of work is useful as it provides investors with a way of measuring
how companies are managing this versus peers. We welcome
this kind of work done by NGOs as it is labour intensive and
carried out by people with in-depth knowledge of the issues as
well as being independent. Few companies are keen to highlight
their shortcomings publicly.
Key target of 100%
FSC timber by
2025 (95%
by 2023
Key target of 100%
recyclable
and recycled
packaging by 2020
For us, this is a good example of civil society, proactive
investors and companies receptive to improving all working
together, resulting in timely progress to reduce the unintended
negative impacts of a business.
All use of company logos, images or trademarks in this presentation are for reference purposes only
Liontrust Sustainable Investment: Engagement and Voting: Annual Review 2019 - 5
