Staff recognize that there is currently no requirement for investment funds to make their shareholder engagement policies and procedures publicly available. However, staff encourage all funds that use shareholder engagement as an ESG strategy to do so in order to provide investors with greater transparency into the scope and nature of the fund’s use of shareholder engagement as an ESG strategy.
As stated above, while staff acknowledge that for some IFMs, proxy voting and shareholder engagement are conducted at the IFM level rather than at the fund level, the above guidance is intended to apply specifically to funds that use proxy voting or shareholder engagement as an ESG investment strategy.