01 Our vision of 02 Sustainable 03 Active 04 Strengthening sustainability 05 Appendices sustainability investing stewardship in our operations 03.8 Exercising our voting rights Principle 7 11 12 Climate-related resolutions Case study: Engagement We consider “Say on Climate” a helpful Case study: Vote action Case study: Holding directors on board independence tool for holding companies accountable following low Say on accountable and composition for their climate ambitions. In 2023, Climate support In its 2023 strategic update, an oil Following high levels of dissent votes we voted on around 30 such resolutions We engaged with an Australian oil and and gas major lowered its net-zero in 2022, we started an engagement compared with about 50 in 2022. gas company on climate ahead of its ambitions in the medium-term alongside campaign with Nordic companies on In Europe, most Say on Climate resolutions AGM to understand how it addressed increased investment in both oil and governance issues in the fourth quarter are still being tabled by UK and French investor concerns following historically gas production and its transition- of the year and held follow-up calls companies, with few in other countries. low support for its Say on Climate focused businesses. We sought to between March and April 2023 ahead Outside of Europe, the most prominent resolution in 2022. However, we saw understand the rationale and underlying of the AGM season. A Swedish company market for Say on Climate is Australia, no improvement in its climate strategy, implications through engagement. was part of this campaign, in relation whereas in the US it has not gained especially in terms of actions to support While the company did not view this to the independence level of the board traction due to continued scepticism from its transition plan. The company was as a fundamental shift in strategy, we and its committees, as well as overall domestic investors. also unable to show su昀케cient oversight disagreed. Given this material change disclosure on the remuneration report. The year 2023 has been the third year of on climate at board level or by top and the fact that investors were not Following a call with the company, voting on climate strategy and progress management. Given its lack of progress, o昀昀ered an updated Say on Climate we shared our concerns regarding reports. We observed issues with how we subsequently decided to vote against vote, we decided to vote against the the composition of the audit and companies are dealing with low vote the re-election of three members of Sustainability Committee chair. remuneration committees, which was turnouts on Say on Climate and with their the Sustainability Committee to hold On climate-related shareholder not aligned with our expectations. responses to investor concerns more broadly. directors accountable. This followed resolutions, we generally support The company committed to change the Additionally, we have also begun to see the update of our proxy voting policy in resolutions that ask companies to report composition and made amendments ad-hoc amendments to company climate 2023 to state that we will vote against on their climate change strategy in with independence levels coming closer plans after they have been submitted to directors’ election in cases of insu昀케cient alignment with the Paris Agreement to our expectations. Given this positive a shareholder vote. We generally expect climate action. or seek information on climate-related outcome, we decided to override our a company to be responsive to investor 昀椀nancial, physical or regulatory risks voting guidelines and support the concerns and to state how they will be and how the company manages them. re-election of the directors. We also addressed. We decided to take vote action Some resolutions we were not able to provided feedback to the company. against directors if we were not convinced support included requests for time- by companies’ actions or explanations (see bound phasing out of activities when we case studies). We consider holding directors viewed this as overly prescriptive. accountable as an important way of voicing our concerns on climate issues. Allianz Global Investors Sustainability and Stewardship Report 2023 69