BOARD (Oversight and implementation through Vice Chairman): The Board is collectively responsible for approving Jupiter's UK Stewardship Code statements. In addition, the Board will allocate a specific agenda dedicated to our investor stewardship activities and receive comment from the CIO and Head of Governance and Sustainability at least on an annual basis. For the period under review, the Board had two formal presentations on stewardship from the CIO and Head of Governance & Sustainability. During Q2, Jupiter's Executive Committee (under the new CEO) also received a presentation from the CIO and Head of Governance & Sustainability. The CIO is a member of Jupiter's Executive Committee.
Jupiter's Vice Chairman is a member of the Stewardship Committee. This Committee does not fall under the auspices of the Board, but it is a function of our fund management department. Further details are discussed below (under the management section) but it is important to highlight that the Committee has Board-level representation. We believe this is important to aid information flows on stewardship activity and challenges. Furthermore, it also reinforces our stewardship culture by connecting our firm's leadership directly with our stewardship undertakings. Due to his market knowledge, investment insight and corporate experience, our Vice Chairman is able to assist during engagement meetings and his counsel is sought when undertaking public policy work. External partnerships are featuring more strongly in our stewardship approach, especially when confronting systemic risks and promoting a well-functioning market. Both the CIO and Vice Chairman have also been involved in dialogue with our partners such as the Investor Forum and Tomorrow's Company.
As previously discussed in this response, Jupiter has a CSR Committee which is contains both executive and non-executive board members. The remit of the CSR Committee is much broader to encompass further organisational CSR considerations beyond investor stewardship (e.g. employee engagement, charitable giving). However, stewardship and Jupiter's environmental impact including TCFD oversight is part of this Committee's remit. The Committee plays an oversight role with regards to the phased implementation of the TCFD recommendations, and Jupiter's broader climate and sustainability disclosure framework, notably via our annual corporate CDP response and Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) statements.
MANAGEMENT (CIO - oversight and implementation): The CIO has formal responsibility for group-wide oversight of stewardship policy and application. Stewardship is now a factor within the performance objectives of our investment personnel. It falls under the CIO's office to monitor and review these objectives with our investment personnel.
The Stewardship Committee is chaired by the CIO. Other members include the Head of Governance & Sustainability, fund manager representatives from equity, fixed income and fund of fund asset classes as well as governance and sustainability specialists. The Committee may also invite external consultants to provide insight into the topics discussed. The objective of the Committee is to develop and deliver a coordinated approach to engagement on ESG matters with chairmen, directors and independent non-executive directors. Through this process, fund managers gain investment insight to inform decision making and influence investee companies where relevant, on behalf of clients. The Committee is also responsible for reviewing Jupiter's policies on stewardship and engagement and ensuring adherence to the company's stewardship obligations.
In terms of implementation, where relevant the CIO and / or the Vice Chairman will also engage with policymakers, collaborative bodies and investor groups. This is an important aspect as we are keen to have our corporate and departmental leaders engage with external policy makers so that it does not compartmentalise stewardship to ESG specialists.
Portfolio Managers (Oversight and Implementation), Investment Analysts and Responsible Investment specialists (implementation): These parties are responsible for the day to day implementation of the specific responsible investment practices. It should be noted that our fund managers have full responsibility and accountability for making such decisions for their portfolios.
The assessment of responsible investment performance is complex and nuanced. The nature of many of the stewardship issues can take multiple periods to exhibit a discernible outcome (e.g. succession, changes in accounting practices, M&A integration) and furthermore this will also entail being engaged over the long-term. Therefore, we are not inclined to judge responsible investment as a snapshot. The CIO's Office will discuss engagement decisions / outcomes, voting decisions, follow up items with each strategy and also reference third-party ESG risk information to underline scrutiny.
DATA SCIENCE: Effective stewardship means maximising internal resources. One of the developments from the period was strengthening our Data Science Team and for them to also take an active leadership role to enhance ESG monitoring capabilities. Our Data Science and GS Team have worked in partnership to create an internal ESG Hub which is an online platform that gathers ESG risk data from third party providers and therefore allows not only our investment teams to be able to access ESG risk data across their portfolios or other stocks (as part of ESG integration) in an efficient manner, it is simultaneously used as a management tool for the CIO office to oversee fund managers. The data science capabilities are important as a great level of expertise is required in order to cleanse the data and challenge our data providers. The initial aim for the internal ESG hub is for it to channel third party data, but the next development will be to tailor metrics and weights in accordance to fund management preferences. The long-term goal will aim to use machine learning to see if we can use modelling to predict future ESG performance.