You can read this Stewardship Report online: Railpen's 2022 Stewardship Report: Taking ownership to drive industry progress.

Crafted by Railpen’s in-house award-winning team, the report details Railpen and the Trustee’s approach to ensuring your pension money is managed thoughtfully and sustainably to give you an income in retirement.

Railpen manages your pension sustainably in a few ways. Firstly, it integrates ESG (environmental, social and governance) issues such as climate change and workforce treatment into its investment decisions. It then builds upon this ESG research to use the influencing tools at its disposal – such as meeting with the companies it invests in, or publicly expressing dissatisfaction through voting at annual general meetings – to persuade companies to improve their behaviour (we call this influencing work ‘stewardship’).

The Stewardship Report offers an in-depth overview of the integration and influencing efforts undertaken throughout 2022. It includes insightful examples and case studies that help illustrate the progress made at the largest companies that Railpen invests in, as well as news of progress on Railpen’s four thematic stewardship priorities for 2021-2025 which are:

• Climate transition
• The worth of the workforce
• Responsible technology
• Sustainable financial markets

The main points raised in this year’s report include:

1. Leading new initiatives to address gaps in the market: In addition to individual engagement, Railpen regularly works with peers from the industry to address key issues and that help improve members’ outcomes. Over the past 12 months, a number of initiatives were launched or developed, including: the Investor Coalition on Equal Votes (ICEV), the Workforce Directors initiative, and the Institutional Investors Group on Climate Change (IIGCC) Bondholder Stewardship Initiative.
   
2. Alignment between Railpen’s stewardship work and operational/internal developments: Discussions between the Sustainable Ownership and the HR teams on issues including workforce engagement mechanisms and cost of living support allowed a sharing of insights and helped to support progress on these issues both internally at Railpen and with companies Railpen invests in.

A separate member-focused report will follow later on this year and we will let you know when it’s published. As in previous years, this Sustainable Ownership Review for members will offer a condensed version of the key points made in the Stewardship Report and will address the topics and issues that members have identified as most important to them.

Commenting on the report, Michael Marshall, Head of Sustainable Ownership at Railpen said: “We are proud to share the continued progress made and impact achieved by our Sustainable Ownership team over the past year. While we see this work as a long-term and ongoing process, we have made significant strides towards driving improved outcomes through our direct and meaningful engagement, collaboration with other influential voices and our willingness to take leadership positions on important themes.

“By using the full suite of ownership rights, we have shown our commitment to using every tool available to us to amplify our voice and influence to deliver positive outcomes for the 350,000 members we serve.”

Caroline Escott, Senior Investment Manager at Railpen said: “Railpen and the Trustee were early pioneers of corporate governance, and our stewardship activity seeks to build upon this heritage and to help raise standards in the industry overall. Our work in the past year to set up and launch collaborative engagements on dual-class share structures and climate bondholder stewardship demonstrates our ambitions to provide industry leadership on ESG issues where we feel it will have material impact.”