2016
Quarterly report for the ’Balanced Sustainable’ portfolio
A status report showcasing the engagement work in the funds.
’Balanced Sustainable’ is the result of the combination of Söderberg & Partners financial and sustainability analysis of funds. The portfolio is screened quarterly and we write a report about current engagement dialogues taking place in the underlying funds. In addition, each report covers a theme to give the reader in-depth knowledge about a certain sustainability topic.
Here in the following are some examples of reported dialogues between manager and company.
Volvo
Volvo is a company that produces trucks and buses. Although these are largely fueled by fossil fuels at present, the fund manager believes that Volvo is well positioned to take advantage of increased demand for environmentally friendly, safe and more automatic vehicles. Volvo has requested feedback from its investors on their climate-related reporting and how they view TCFD's proposed disclosures. The fund manager supports the TCFD's recommendations and believes that information linked to climate change is important to increase the stability of the financial system. One of the measurement points discussed with Volvo was the avoidance of greenhouse gas emissions through new types of products.
Johnson & Johnson
In the last status report, we described how Johnson & Johnson has been involved in a controversial incident linked to a drug that caused serious and lasting side effects. The company has been charged and need to pay compensation to affected patients. The fund manager chose to sell its holdings earlier this year as they did not see any positive outcome from the dialogues with Johnson & Johnson, signaling the company is in high risk of repeating the incident. However, the fund manager intends to contact the company again in the summer to see if there have been any positive changes in their behavior and product safety.
Astra Zeneca & Novo Nordisk
These companies are covered by the fund manager's engagement work in the pharmaceutical industry, with a focus water pollution management in production and the supply chains. Pollutants from, for example, the manufacture of antibiotics are problematic because they increase the spread of antimicrobial resistance, which is a major global threat to public health. The fund manager has done a study and written a report on this topic communicated to the companies’ CEO, along with the manager's expectations how this issue should be managed by the companies.
