Enhancements to responsible investment in various asset classes

Here is an overview of developments over recent months:

• Exercising voting rights: PUBLICA has done this at Swiss companies for a long time, as the law requires it to. Abroad, voting rights were previously exercised only at the 150–200 firms where PUBLICA is engaged in dialogue, but now this has been extended to more companies. Exercising voting rights involves applying a voting guideline to reflect PUBLICA’s desired outcomes. The guideline was developed by PUBLICA in association with Inrate, which also exercises voting rights in Swiss companies on PUBLICA’s behalf. For foreign companies, this task is performed by Minerva Analytics.
   
• Dialogue: Acting on instructions from PUBLICA, SVVK-ASIR seeks dialogue with companies that commit systematic and serious breaches of the normative basis, or where issues such the climate. Sometimes, dialogue is unsuccessful, and in these cases, the responsible investment policy now permits PUBLICA to support collaborative investor letters and shareholder motions or vote against individual directors.
   
• Coal exclusion extended: PUBLICA no longer invests in companies on the Global Coal Exit List published by Urgewald, unless PUBLICA is already engaged in dialogue with them or they have a credible coal exit plan in place. 
   
• ESG indices: For emerging market government bonds, PUBLICA has worked with FTSE Russell to develop bespoke ESG indices, define the potentially investable countries, and overweight or underweight them on the basis of ESG criteria.
   
• For Swiss companies, there is a path for reducing CO2 emissions. Here, PUBLICA has now defined an interim target for 2030 of 5.6 kg CO2e/m². It is supported in this by Amstein + Walthert.
   
• SDG: PUBLICA has prioritised four of the 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals:
  • Goal 7: Affordable and clean energy
  • Goal 13: Climate action
  • Goal 8: Decent work and economic growth
  • Goal 16: Peace, justice and strong institutions
  • PUBLICA, supported by Net Purpose, now records and reports on the contribution made to these four goals by the investments in its portfolio.
     
• PUBLICA’s responsible investment report is largely based on the ASIP ESG reporting standard and the Swiss Climate Scores. PUBLICA now receives the figures from MSCI.