Annual Sustainability Report
Sustainability and stewardship have long been an important part of our investment approach. As long-term investors, we have always recognised the need to understand, analyse and assess all aspects of a company’s operations and practices. Long-term success depends upon sound and sustainable and ethical processes alongside robust governance.
In recent years, scrutiny of these important, non-financial metrics has increased significantly as has our need to report upon our efforts to judge efforts and encourage improvement. This report seeks to demonstrate our approach in doing so through our company research and engagement. It also documents our efforts in regard proxy voting as well as collaborative efforts to advocate for change.
As we do more to encourage companies around the world to improve standards so too we must ask more of ourselves. This report also summarises the work we have undertaken over the past year to improve upon our own processes and to challenge ourselves to do better.
ANNUAL SUSTAINABILITY REPORT 2021
“Walter Scott, today, follows the same investment philosophy and process that it did when the firm was founded in 1983. But that does not mean the firm has stood still. Similarly, in building a long-term investment case for any company, we have always considered integrity and governance across all aspects of its operations and so our approach to responsible and sustainable investing has always been integrated. Yet our integrated approach has evolved. As the availability and importance of data and information has increased so the Research team certainly devotes more time to this area of analysis than they might have done a decade ago. With that has come the need to expand processes, provide effective training and additional resource to ensure every member of the Research team remains alert to best practice in all aspects of governance as well as the challenges and opportunities across environmental and social issues.“
Jane Henderson, Managing Director