01 Introduction and strategy 02 Measuring and managing sustainability 03 Climate change related disclosure 04 Strengthening our foundation 05 Our universal principles 02.2 Sustainability in proprietary investments Bilateral engagements All companies in which Allianz is invested in via public equity or fixed income are in scope of our bilateral corporate engagement. These investments could be made through our in-house asset managers as well as through asset managers that are external to the Allianz Group. Corporate engagement is well suited to address idiosyncratic risks arising in our portfolios which are usually identified by our ESG scoring approach described in  02.2.1.3 . Questions, requests and expectations related to identified sustainability risks and opportunities are submitted to the company for written response. Based on this response, and backed-up by official company documents, the engagement team may clarify open points, request additional disclosures or conduct in-person (virtual) meetings with management. We request that any commitments a company makes to address topics raised are integrated into their annual reporting or other published materials approved by their management. This ensures transparency around commitments and holds the company accountable. Each engagement is monitored to track the responsiveness of the company and pr ogress against identified issues. If the company shows significant action to improve their sustainability risk management and/or to solve and prevent further sustainability issues arising, the engagement is closed as successful. Should a company’s answers continue to prove insufficient, show no willingness to improve sustainability performance or fail to respond to our engagement communications, our team recommends restriction of all investments in the company to the Chairperson of the Sustainability Board. In 2022, we opened or continued direct engagement discussions with 57 1 (2021: 61) investee companies based on low ESG scoring. Two (2021: 21) of these engagements were considered successful and were closed, zero (2021: 2) were closed without success and the remaining 55 (2021: 38). 1 57 Elevating Climate Diligence 2.pdf (unepfi.org) . Collaborative engagements Collaborative engagements can take the form of multiple investors addressing a single company or multiple companies and their value chain in a single sector. Collaboration consolidates the efforts of the parties involved, allowing for more efficient and solution-oriented discussions at a greater level of detail. We support collaborative engagements where possible as a more effective and efficient form of investment stewardship. The Climate Action 100+ (CA 100+) initiative is the most prominent collaborative corporate engagement on climate change mitigation and decarbonization strategies from companies. It now includes over 600 cooperating investors who represent US $68 trillion. We support the CA100+ Net-Zero Company Benchmark and encourage all of our asset managers to make use of the results to inform their stewardship activities. In 2022, we continued to take an active role in the Climate Action 100+ initiative by co-leading specific engagements. Asset manager engagement The third pillar of AIM’s engagement program is the asset manager engagement program which covers private and public markets asset managers. As critical stakeholders of ours, asset managers have intensive relationships with investee companies and the organizational structures, expertise and analytical skills to assess and engage companies, often through dedicated stewardship teams. The way they represent and execute investment activities on our behalf is critical to our interests and investment objectives. Therefore, we clearly communicate our interests to asset managers and support them to align their investment and stewardship activities to best represent our long-term interests on sustainability and climate topics. In addition to bi-lateral asset manager engagements, we are involved in collaborative asset manager engagements through the NZAOA. As co-leaders of the Engagement track, we support other asset owners to effectively engage their asset managers through their own selection, appointment and monitoring processes. We will continue to develop material and guidelines that benefit co-members, and the asset owner community more broadly, to effectively engage with asset managers. To ensure alignment between our asset managers and our investment philosophy, we actively assess them against consistent core themes. If there are areas that do not meet our expectations, we engage on specific topics and ask for time-bound commitments to implement improvements. Voting on shareholder resolutions, routine votes and votes on directors are among the strongest ways public equity asset Allianz Group Sustainability Report 2022 43