More than 1,000 dialogues with companies on their sustainable transition

As an active owner, we use our influence as a shareholder to improve the practices of the companies we invest in. This work is done in the name of our investment funds and requires resources and expertise. In practice, it can be done in many ways: voting at annual general meetings, engaging in dialogues directly with company representatives, conducting field visits to production sites  and taking part in investor initiatives.  

Because investment funds pool the money of large numbers of individual investors, companies consider the funds important shareholders and are therefore willing to hear their views and suggestions. Nordea has a team of around 25 responsible investment experts who work exclusively with environmental, social and governance (ESG) issues in our investee companies.    

In 2023 we engaged globally in 1,179 dialogues with companies we invest in to address ESG issues. Almost half of the dialogues (49%) were about climate, environment and biodiversity. While the other half was split between people and social matters (23%) and the way the invested companies are governed (28%).

How we use our voting rights 

Voting at Annual General Meetings (AGM) is an important part of the active engagement carried out by Nordea’s funds. Since the AGM is the highest decision-making body of a company, voting results may also determine the company’s future direction.

Last year we voted to support initiatives related to the climate and environment, human rights and enhancing biodiversity in particular. Moreover, we voted in matters related to for example data security, board gender diversity and companies’ remuneration policies. In 2023 we exercised our voting rights thousands of times through Nordea’s fund holdings at around 3,700 AGMs.

In our online Voting Portal you can see how we voted at various meetings.

Impact power through investor collaboration 

In addition to having one-to-one dialogues with various companies, we actively participate in investor initiatives on various ESG topics. As an asset manager we strongly believe that collaborative engagements are a crucial part of our engagement activities to achieve real world progress with the companies in which we hold equities or bonds. We are currently part of 37 initiatives, including 4 new initiatives that we joined during 2023.

If you would like to know more about how we work with responsible investments, read the full Responsible Investments Report 2023.

More details on our responsible investment, corporate governance and stewardship practices can also be found in the UK Stewardship Code report.