Dutch pension fund ABP has announced that it will set stricter voting requirements at shareholder meetings in which it votes, with more attention to be paid to climate, human rights and biodiversity.

The new voting policy is part of the tightening of the pension fund’s sustainable and responsible investment policy.

Going forward, ABP will vote against the reappointment of supervisory board or non-executive board chairs and their climate strategy if a company does not disclose their carbon emissions or set clear targets to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees.

It stated that it will pay “special attention” to companies that are active in sectors that have a major impact on the climate.

Furthermore, ABP argued that sustainability objectives should be part of a company’s remuneration policy, and if this is not the case it will vote against remuneration proposals.

On biodiversity, the pension fund said this now has a clear place in its voting policy and it will mainly look at companies with activities in sectors that can be bad for biodiversity.

If these companies do not have an active policy to prevent deforestation or the loss of biodiversity, ABP will not agree to the reappointment of the chair of their supervisory boards or non-executive boards.

“In addition to these clear 'climate and biodiversity votes', we have further tightened our voting policy in the areas of taxation and human rights,” ABP stated.

“For example, we vote against the reappointment of the CFO if the company does not meet our standards for 'fiscally responsible behaviour' and does not change quickly enough, or if it has become discredited for, for example, tax avoidance.

“We are also becoming stricter when it comes to human rights. For companies that do not do enough to prevent involvement in human rights violations, we vote against the reappointment of the chairman of the supervisory board or the non-executive board.

“The AGMs are an important measuring point for ABP. It has therefore been decided to review the voting policy annually and to tighten it where necessary.

“At the same time, we continue to monitor companies throughout the year. Are they not doing what they promised? Then we start the conversation with them. If we see too little progress, this may eventually mean that we say goodbye to companies, as we did with the producers of fossil energy.

“From now on, we will tighten the voting policy annually.”

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