Active stewardship isn’t a box-ticking exercise. At EQ Investors (EQ), we use shareholder rights as a genuine lever for change, pushing back on negative externalities and pressing companies to build more resilient businesses. That matters more than ever right now.

Our proprietary analysis of voting records across 25 asset managers shows support for environmental and social resolutions has fallen by around 15% over the past 18 to 24 months. Increased litigation risk, regulatory shifts, and anti-ESG rhetoric, particularly in the US, have all played a part. The industry’s stewardship ambition is retreating.

Ours isn’t.

We respond to this trend in three ways. First, we engage directly with asset managers to improve their voting behaviour, including pushing them to vote against directors at companies lagging on climate. Second, we encourage managers to articulate the financial materiality of their engagements, not just the sustainability case. Third, where managers fall short, we reallocate assets toward those with stronger stewardship practices.

Holding fund managers to account is central to what we do. But we also engage directly with companies ourselves. Our focus areas include climate risk, biodiversity, human rights, ethical AI, and access to medicines. We join collaborative investor initiatives and attend AGMs to press boards on these issues – amplifying our impact through collective action.

This year, we’ll use those AGM spaces to make one thing clear to boards: sustainability is still material. To us, and to our clients.