Active ownership

General principles for engagement

Storebrand's Risk and Ownership Team is in dialogue with a large number of companies each year, seeking to influence them to move in a more sustainable direction. Our engagement approach is based on the following principles:


Creating shareholder value

We believe that companies that proactively manage sustainability risks and adjust their strategies and business models to embrace sustainable solutions, will also create increased shareholder value over time. Thus, our clients' shareholder value also encompasses environmental, social and governance value.


Aiming for a positive impact

Ultimately, we aim for our investments to have a positive impact. Therefore, we do not only engage with companies to require them to redress wrongs (reactive engagement). We also engage with them to lift sustainability standards proactively so as to address potential sustainability risks before they can become impacts, as well as to encourage good practices. Accordingly, we allocate more resources to these proactive engagements, engaging for long periods and, where possible, with other investors for more leverage and better results.


Leveraging our Nordic position

We are a Nordic actor. This means that we have more leverage in Nordic countries where we are well known, and our exposure can be high (size of holdings). We will prioritise our proactive engagement with Nordic companies, where our Nordic position and knowledge of these companies enables constructive and meaningful dialogue that creates value for these companies, Storebrand, and our clients. However, this does not limit us to only engage with Nordic companies. Aspects such as the materiality of ESG risks, exposure, and the ability to have greater impact on ESG issues remain important factors to consider in the prioritization of our engagement work with companies outside of the Nordics.


Multi-stakeholder engagement

We understand that many sustainability issues cannot be solved by companies or investors alone; they require the involvement of other stakeholders. As a result, we engage with others such as governments, industry organisations, environmental and human rights organisations or labour unions. In particular, we consider policy-level engagement an essential factor in stimulating change since we believe regulation sometimes is required to advance many sustainability issues.


Targeted engagement

We engage companies on their sustainability practices, management of risks to people and the environment, developments in accordance with changing regulations, mitigating reputational risks, and expectations from their shareholders and society at large.

In our experience, we achieve the best results through cooperation with other investors and, when engaging individually, through targeted engagement with companies where our ownership level is highest.

Historical returns are no guarantee of future returns. Future returns will depend, among other things, on market developments, the manager's skills, the fund's risk profile and management fees. The returns can be negative as a result of price losses. There is risk associated with investments in the fund due to market movements, developments in currency, interest rates, economic conditions, industry- and company-specific conditions. Before investing, customers are advised to familiarize themselves with the fund's key information and prospectus, which contains further information about the fund's characteristics and costs.