What do we do to make a positive impact?
As a large investor, we believe we have a material opportunity and on behalf of our stakeholders to try to use our ownership to the positive. Our ability to do this depends on our direct investments primarily being in bonds and otherwise invested through externally managed funds.
More information about our principles
The Norwegian Corporate Governance Board (NUES) and the OECD Guidelines for Corporate Governance form the basis for issues related to corporate governance, organisation and management in voting, but this alone does not cover topics that are voted on at general meetings in cases where we are direct owners and where external managers vote on our behalf. Topics such as greenhouse gas emission strategies have provided our own net zero emission strategy, and the importance of developing companies in high-emission sectors in particular have become important topics to consider in connection with general meetings. We encourage all companies to adopt a strategy that is ambitious enough to be compatible with our goal, e.g. by committing to the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi).
We devote considerable resources to following up external managers who manage funds on our behalf regarding individual companies that we have, for example, on our exclusion list or are significant contributors to our carbon emissions without having satisfactory targets to cut these and general assessments of strategy, initiatives and sustainability assessments. Through these dialogues, we seek to change the investment policy/strategy for funds that also have other investors, that the manager engages in dialogue with individual companies and includes new aspects in its assessment of investments. Ultimately, we divest from funds that do not show a willingness to adapt to our wishes.
As a bond investor, we have no formal rights in the same way as a shareholder, but the opportunity to influence is nevertheless significant through dialogue with issuers and managers, and unlike shareholders, it is also possible to stipulate what the investments are to be used for, regulate interest rate terms based on whether targets are achieved, and the issuer is continuously dependent on market confidence in order to obtain satisfactory financing terms. As a direct shareholder, we seek to vote based on internal assessments at all general meetings and have no lending programmes for our equity portfolios, so that we have the opportunity to use our vote.