Corporate Sustainability Disclosure

As an investor with a high focus on sustainability, Storebrand believes that all companies should report on standardized and company specific sustainability metrics. This will benefit all stakeholders and increase transparency. The level of oversight and reporting on ESG-specific issues are good indicators of how a company measures and manages its exposure to sustainability risks. This is important to us as investors.

Increased reporting will improve the flow of sustainability information to investors and others alike. It will make sustainability reporting by companies more consistent, so that investors, banks and regulators can use comparable and reliable sustainability information. Companies based in the EU will be subject to regulations that streamlines and demand such reporting, but we will demand the same disclosure from publicly listed companies in all countries.

We believe that it is in everyone's interest that companies report on how sustainability issues affect their business, and how their own operations and products/services impact people and the environment.

Currently there are differing standards and few regulatory requirements on corporate sustainability disclosure, leading to non-comparable and insufficient information. This means that we as investors do not have a good enough overview of the sustainability risks our portfolio companies are exposed to. We need this information to be comparable and verifiable to channel our investments towards the most sustainable companies.

We will therefore highlight the importance of consistent, reliable and verifiable reporting on sustainability indicators in our dialogue with our portfolio companies in the period 2021-2022.

We expect our investee companies to:

  • Integrate sustainability risks and measurable targets into decision making process
  • Provide enhanced corporate disclosures in line with TCFD recommendations where applicable
  • Disclose their remuneration policies and packages for senior management and that these are aligned with the companies' sustainability targets
  • Report on diversity in the company, such as gender pay gap and diversity initiatives
  • Report on their commitments to adhere to international standards such as the UN Global Compact Principles or other similar frameworks.

A fund having performed well in the past is no guarantee for future returns. Other factors with an impact on how a fund may perform in the future include market developments, the fund manager's performance, the fund's risk profile, and management fees. When the shares a fund is invested in decline in value, it may lead to negative returns.