Engagement

We use our position as a shareholder, to put pressure on companies to improve their social and environmental performance. For Storebrand, it is our daily contact with companies, through emails, meetings and telephone conversations, that is the most important channel we have to influence companies. By making enquiries about a companies performance, and reporting on environmental and social factors, we encourage companies to actively address these issues.

Storebrand's SRI department is engaged in dialogue with over 400 companies every year.

External funds

Through Storebrand's "Link" platform, our clients can invest in funds managed by others. This can be seen as Storebarnd's financial "supply chain". From 2008, these externally managed funds have been followed up for compliance with our "Group Standard for Responsible Investments". The work consists of

• Contact and dialogue with external fund managers that have excluded companies in one or more their funds.
• During the dialogue, Storebrand will request managers to divest from companies that have been excluded from our investments, or to contact these companies to pass on our concerns.
• In cases where the response from fund managers is considered inadequate, Storebrand will assess whether to increase pressure on a manger by co-operating with other investors
• As a last resort, Storebrand may divest from the fund in question.

We are actively engaged with fund managers who have funds containing companies Storebrand has excluded. There have been many examples where managers have either divested from companies at our request, or initiated a dialogue with the excluded company(ies). Using this strategy, we are able to increase the pressure on companies operating unethically, and raise awareness of ethical problems in the financial community.

We cannot guarantee that externally managed funds will always comply to our Group Standard. What we can guarantee, is that we will continue to work systematically to maintain pressure on our external partners, so that we can together contribute to more sustainable development.