Stewardship Finalist (2021)
British Columbia Investment Management Corporation (BCI)
Project: BCI’s Leading Stewardship in Board Governance and Climate-related Disclosure Practices
BCI has demonstrated leading stewardship practices in its engagement approach, which has provided measurable results and positive outcomes in advancing widespread implementation of ESG practices. BCI spearheaded and participated in a wide variety of engagement activities such as direct company engagements, different peer collaborations, proxy voting and policy work. To demonstrate leadership in stewardship, we will highlight two engagement focus areas for 2020: board gender diversity and climate-related disclosure.
BCI is the Chair of the 30% Club Canada’s Investor Group and played an instrumental role in developing the 30% Club Canada’s Investor Statement of Intent. BCI is also one of the first pension plans to use voting rights to encourage increased female representation on boards and better disclosure on climate risk, as reflected in the most recent Proxy Voting Guidelines, which were developed in 2020 and published in early 2021.
BCI has made significant contributions to Climate Action 100+, through leading/co-leading or supporting on 10 company engagements. Significant progress has been made across the initiative in 2020 and since BCI signed on in 2017.
Overall, BCI believes that the combination of all engagement approaches influences asset owners and investors to improve their ESG processes and guides companies to better business practices.
The winner and finalist scorecards can be found here.