Stewardship and Sustainability Council
Our approach to sustainable investing has evolved from a primarily risk-based lens to a much broader and deeper perspective, recognising that stewardship and sustainability encompass the need to identify opportunities and risk, and to consider both impacts and outcomes of all our investment decisions.
Our investment teams have autonomous sustainable investment approaches with dedicated personnel that best suits each asset class, region, and specialism. To fully leverage the wealth of expertise across our investment teams, we established a firm-wide Stewardship and Sustainability Council, which provides a forum for dialogue and sharing of best practices around sustainable investing.
Led by co-chairs David Sheasby and David Zahn, the council provides an opportunity for members to join working groups that tackle common sustainability challenges and priorities together.
David Zahn, CFA, FRM
Senior Vice President, Head of European Fixed Income
David Sheasby
Head of Stewardship, Sustainability & Impact
Investment Sustainability Solutions Team
Our Investment Sustainability Solutions Team is a multi-disciplined group of sustainable investment professionals with expertise in stewardship and engagement, sustainability data, global regulatory requirements, and investment categorization. The team supports a broad range of Franklin Templeton's stewardship and sustainable investing initiatives. This involves liaison with individual investment teams, the Stewardship & Sustainability Council and its working groups, the firm's Sustainable Investment Governance Committee, the firm's Public Policy Committee, as well as the firmβs corporate social responsibility team.
Some examples of the team's initiatives, projects, and leadership roles:
The team's data professionals support our investment teams with a sustainability data hub, helping to source and integrate data from a wide variety of vendors. The team also supports the council's effort to drive best data integration practices across our investment teams. In addition, they are working to develop primary research and analytical tools on thematic topics such as net zero, biodiversity, and water scarcity. Our investment teams can use this research to support informed decision-making, engagement, or even simply for education and training purposes.
Our approach prioritizes active ownership through engagement and voting as the primary tool for driving change. Decision-making authority for voting and engagement lies within each investment teamβs responsibilities. Our stewardship professionals support our investment teams in engagement, execution of proxy votes, and policy advocacy. They provide thematic expertise on corporate governance and sustainability, alongside voting research. They also partner with investment teams to engage directly with issuers and indirectly as part of trade associations and investor networks.
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Important Legal Information
This material is intended to be of general interest only and should not be construed as individual investment advice or a recommendation or solicitation to buy, sell or hold any security or to adopt any investment strategy. It does not constitute legal or tax advice. The views expressed are those of the investment manager and the comments, opinions and analyses are rendered as at publication date and may change without notice. Franklin Templeton has certain environmental, social and governance (ESG) goals or capabilities; however, not all strategies are managed to βESGβ oriented objectives. Integrating ESG considerations into the investment process is not a guarantee that better performance will be achieved. All investments involve risks, including possible loss of principal. Data from third party sources may have been used in the preparation of this material and Franklin Templeton has not independently verified, validated or audited such data. Franklin Templeton accepts no liability whatsoever for any loss arising from use of this information and reliance upon the comments, opinions and analyses in the material is at the sole discretion of the user. β