In our due diligence questionnaire we also seek information on whether the investment manager has any of the following:
- Diversity initiatives (can include gender, age, board tenure, socioeconomic/ethnic background)? For example, target recruitment or quota (if so, please define), diversity training for employees, mentorship programs, initiatives that support a diverse workforce, diversity monitoring or audits, initiatives to support diversity of thought, skills or opinion in the investment function
- Policy on pay equity? Or targets for closing pay gaps?
- Environmental initiatives? For example, energy efficiency targets, waste targets, carbon offsetting?
- Social initiatives? For example, philanthropy/donations to community or charities
Other areas we focus on include:
- Manager's investment process and ESG integration;
- Stewardship and active ownership practices;
- Asset class specific questions - i.e. for our property managers whether they are the the manager vs operator;
- ESG resourcing and training;
- Remuneration practices related to ESG integration; and
- transparency and alignment.
Strategy
We seek to understand how Remuneration practices relate to ESG integration
ESG people/oversight
We evaluate a manager on their ESG Training practices including what training is undertaken and and how often the ESG team integrates with the mainstream team, and if there is no ESG team what the mainstream team does to learn about ESG.
Note: We review but do not mandate the use of ESG data as we allow our managers to choose the most relevant data for their investment process. However, we discuss case studies with them to understand how they are using the data.