An eye on quality can help deliver great returns over the long term

As long-term owners, our Investments team keeps a close eye on the quality of our investments and that includes environmental, social and governance (ESG) considerations. Because we believe companies with good corporate behaviour make better investments.

We report on our activities in our Responsible Investment and Climate reports. Our Responsible investment report 1 January – 30 June 2023 outlines key activities over the past six months and details how we exercised our proxy voting rights.

Below we share some highlights:

• Our team held 74 company meetings to discuss ESG-related issues, and attended 43 ESG briefings, roundtables, and conferences arranged by industry partners.
• We engaged with companies on a range of issues including sustainability reporting, climate disclosures, cyber security, remuneration, and diversity and inclusion.
• ESG considerations formed part of due diligence on our $1 billion investment in Vantage Towers.
• We added NorthStar Impact Funds as a new external manager for our sustainable branded investment options. NorthStar invests in listed companies that seek to address social and environmental challenges.
• We continued to grow our investments in Uniseed. These cover research and technologies coming out of Australian universities. Examples include Trioda Wilingi, a company developing a medical gel, and Morse Micro, a company that’s changing the Wi-Fi industry with its energy efficient silicon chip.

Our report also includes examples of our engagement with investee companies and case studies on how we voted at specific company annual general meetings. We disclose how we voted on our website here.

We continue to be involved in Climate Action 100+, we are co-chairing ACSI’s working group on Rights and Cultural Heritage Risk Management and we’ve joined the Net Zero Australia Project from the University of Queensland and University of Melbourne.

Did you know

Did you know at UniSuper we manage over 70% of our investments in-house? That enables us to engage directly with the boards and management of investee companies on important ESG issues, such as executive remuneration, climate, modern slavery, occupational health and safety, cultural heritage management, and others. Our ESG approach applies across all our portfolios and is embedded in our investment process.