“Insight’s mission is to prioritise its clients’ certainty of meeting their investment objectives,” said Bruce Murphy, Director – Australia and New Zealand at Insight Investment. “We aim to provide investment solutions that deliver quality and excellence by managing financial and, where mandated to, non-financial risks and opportunities, while operating to high ethical and professional standards. We believe that environmental, social and governance (ESG) factors can be important drivers of investment risk and so must be understood when managing portfolios.”
Insight undertook 1,178 engagements in 2022 with debt issuers across 78 countries, including 38 emerging markets. There were 140 dedicated ESG engagements, including a focus on climate change, water management and diversity and inclusion, and Insight further expanded its water risk research, aimed at identifying companies in the relevant Insight portfolios that have high water dependencies.
The report gives case studies of engagements, such as discussions where Insight has held a company accountable for its treatment of employees, a long-term engagement with a Singaporean investment company on climate disclosures and another engagement highlighting the governance issues driving a beverage company’s poor ESG score.
A summary of how Insight engages in active dialogue with companies and governments is also available in this this short video presented by Rhona Cormack, Senior Stewardship Analyst at Insight.
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