Stewardship

Exclusion

Negative social, ethical and environmental screens are used to exclude certain industries and companies from the Stewardship Funds. Please see the Stewardship philosophy document for details of the exclusions.

Engagement

We engage with companies to encourage them to enact the best possible sustainability practices.

This has a number of components:

1. Aviva Investors Annual Chair Letter – on an annual basis, Aviva Investors outlines a set of sustainability priorities that we expect companies to take into consideration. These are articulated in our annual letters to company chairs. The core elements of our expectations of our ‘People’, ‘Climate’ and ‘Earth’ Pillars outlined in the Chair letter are accompanied by Aviva Investors’ Sustainable Outcomes Programmes. 
2. Stewardship thematic engagement – we initiate targeted thematic programmes on specific issues to encourage companies the Funds invest in to improve practices where they fall short of our expectations or to push the boundaries of best practice in a specific area. These themes continued to be diversity and inclusion – advocating for inclusive cultures and diverse workforces – and plastics – supporting the circular economy. 
3. Reactive engagement – we may engage in response to controversies and issues on sustainability issues. 
4. Collaborative initiatives – we exert our collective influence with other stakeholders and encourage companies to participate in market-leading collaborative initiatives.

Monitoring

We monitor the performance of the Stewardship Funds against several ‘non-financial’ targets, including carbon emissions, the percentage of companies in the Funds with a set target to reduce emissions, as well as the percentage of companies in the Funds with a diversity policy and the average % of women on the board.