The annual meetings of the Ethos Engagement Pools Switzerland and International took place this Thursday morning in Bern. The members of the two programmes validated the ESG themes that will be discussed with Swiss and foreign companies next year.
The Ethos Engagement Pool (EEP) International officially welcomed its 100th member last Friday with the joining of the GEMINI Collective Foundation. This shareholder dialogue program with foreign companies was launched by Ethos and six pension funds in 2016.
Divestment or engagement, what is the most effective method for investors concerned about ESG issues to have an impact? The question is still debated. Ethos is organising on October 6 in Geneva, as part of the 2022 edition of the Building Bridges conference, a debate with a panel of specialists around the question of shareholder engagement and its effectiveness for decarbonising not only the investment portfolios but also and especially the real economy.
Ethos and Raiffeisen announced today an extension of their collaboration in the field of active ownership. Ethos will now also conduct shareholder dialogue on ESG issues to Swiss and international companies on behalf of Raiffeisen Switzerland. This new collaboration is part of Ethos' commitment to broaden its engagement services to other categories of investors in addition to pension funds and public benefit foundations.
Ethos has published this Tuesday the summary reports of the Swiss and international Ethos Engagement Pools (EEP) for 2021. These reports present the dialogue activities carried out by Ethos with listed companies regarding issues related to the environment, social or governance. Detailed reports are however only available for members of each pools.
Carried out with the help of EthicsGrade, a UK-based company specialising in corporate digital responsibility ratings, this study examined the practices of the 48 largest listed companies in Switzerland (SMI Expanded). The results show that companies still lack transparency about their digital practices and that their degree of preparation for issues such as ethics in artificial intelligence are still in their early stages. Ethos and EthicsGrade have already planned to reconduct the study in 2022 and 2023.
The annual meetings of the Swiss and International Ethos Engagement Pools took place this Thursday in Bern to review the dialogue activities carried out in 2021 and to define the priority areas for next year.
Ethos has collected international best practices in the fight against deforestation and summarised them in an Engagement Paper published today. On behalf of the 71 members of its international shareholder dialogue programme, Ethos will initially engage 7 multinational companies particularly exposed to deforestation risks to encourage them to implement concrete and measurable measures to stop the destruction of forests.
LafargeHolcim announced today that it has agreed to Ethos' request to prepare a climate transition report and to submit it to an advisory shareholder vote at its 2022 annual general meeting (AGM). Ethos welcomes the board's decision to involve shareholders in the validation of its climate strategy.
Over the last few months, Ethos Foundation has held numerous discussions with the boards of Nestlé and LafargeHolcim with the aim of encouraging them to voluntarily submit their climate transition plans to a shareholder vote. After Ethos and seven Swiss pension funds submitted a shareholder resolution at Nestlé's annual general meeting (AGM), the board of directors announced on Tuesday 16 March that it would submit its climate strategy to an advisory vote at the AGM on 15 April 2021. Following this welcome decision, Ethos withdrew its shareholder resolution. Discussions with LafargeHolcim are ongoing and the company will announce its decision in the coming weeks.