Engagement is spearheaded by a lead investor or co-lead investors, who work with a number of contributing investors. Lead investors can focus on a specific company, sector or theme; contributing investors form part of specific focus company engagement teams. In some circumstances, investors may also engage with focus companies on an individual basis as part of Climate Action 100+ but are required to: liaise with relevant network staff and/or lead investors to ensure engagement priorities and ambition are aligned with the goals of the initiative, as well as with the overall collaborative approach. Please see Chapters 2 and 3 (Engagement Principles and Approaches) of the Phase 2 Signatory Handbook for more details.
How are investor roles decided?
When signing on to the initiative, investors are asked to nominate which focus companies they wish to engage with and whether this is as a lead/co-lead investor, contributing investor, or individual engager. Asset owners can choose to join as investor supporters which means they do not participate directly in engagements but can request that their investment managers or service providers responsible for engagements join the initiative. New to Phase 2, investors can also become thematic or sectoral lead investors, seeking to deepen engagement by providing expertise in priority areas.
For more information on the selection of lead investors, please see page 10 of the Signatory Handbook.
Engagement Approaches
Each engagement is unique and investors may be presented with different challenges driven by a range of factors, including: the profile of the company; the company’s approach to climate change; its responsiveness to engagement; the industry or sector and the development of relevant technologies; and the regional context.
Lead investors are expected to annually prepare a year-ahead engagement plan and to review progress made with the focus company engagements. The initiative also conducts progress reporting and publicly benchmarks all focus companies using the Net Zero Company Benchmark.
As part of the engagement plan, there are numerous engagement tools that signatories may choose to use. The use of such tools is at the discretion of individual signatories and may evolve over the course of the engagement. For sample engagement steps, please see page 21 of the Signatory Handbook.
Please also refer to the initiative disclaimer which sets out further information on the initiative’s engagement approach.
