Global investment industry urged to double resources dedicated to stewardship

Written by Adam Cadle

14/05/2024

The global investment industry must double the resources dedicated to stewardship, a new report from the Thinking Ahead Institute (TAI), commissioned by the United Nations-supported Principles for Responsible Investment (PRI), has said.

The report said the industry average stewardship resourcing level is currently at around 5%. This is a percentage of total investment management costs. Examples of resourcing include spend on internal staff time, third party providers of stewardship services, data, subscriptions, memberships or reporting costs, among several others mentioned in the report.

Furthermore, the report pointed out that the industry currently lacks the measures of costs needed to unpack the resourcing model for stewardship. Therefore, the TAI has launched the Stewardship Resources Assessment Framework, to enable the investment industry to assess the resources available to stewardship efforts in a more structured way, as well as the subsequent improvement of such stewardship efforts over time.

Nathan Fabian, chief sustainable systems officer at the PRI, commented: “Strong stewardship is needed now more than ever to fulfil fiduciary duties and deliver on client and beneficiary interests over the long term. These ambitions can only be met with adequate resourcing at industry level. We call on investors to pave the way for data-driven approaches to stewardship resourcing which foster accountability, transparency, and ultimately, impactful change.”

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