Company engagement priorities for 2026-2028

Building a better future together 

In 2025, we had:

Learn more about our approach in our Stewardship and Responsible Investment Report.

Our voting, engagement, research, and advocacy activities are designed to be pragmatic, informed by evolving market insights and local best practices, and aligned with the long-term interests of our clients. These activities aim to enhance the value and integrity of our investment decisions.

Depending on a product’s investment objective, our engagement looks to focus on:

• Specific sustainability improvements; and/or
• Driving positive changes for the environment and society.

Please check your prospectus for details on specific product objectives.

When engaging with companies we define objectives and track progress, combining engagement for change with engagement for information. By collaborating openly with clients and industry peers, we aim to strengthen our ability to help drive lasting, positive outcomes.

Engagement Delivery Group 

In 2025, we established the Engagement Delivery Group (EDG) to bring together our Responsible Investment, Equities, Rates & Cash and Fixed Income teams to make our stewardship more effective and better aligned with investment decisions. The EDG coordinates engagement and voting activity across listed equities and fixed income (excluding private debt), helping to ensure consistency, accountability and the sharing of best practice.

The EDG oversees engagement planning, monitors progress and applies clear escalation routes where concerns persist, ranging from enhanced engagement to investment actions where appropriate. It provides recommendations to the Investment Committee via the Responsible Investment Sub-Committee, supporting a joined-up approach to ESG issues across strategies, desks and asset classes.

Engaging on issues that matter most  

As we look towards 2026–2028, we have refreshed our engagement themes focused on four priorities: climate, nature, people and governance. These four pillars represent our ongoing commitment to aim to drive positive change and fostering sustainable growth in an increasingly complex and dynamic landscape.

Each theme has played a central role in our strategy to date, but the coming years will see us more focused and place even greater emphasis on the interconnectedness of these Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) topics. Together, these themes reflect our engagement intentions for the period, while allowing flexibility to adapt our focus as risks, opportunities and client priorities evolve.

2026-2028 priority engagement issues  

Net zero1: Creating a Paris-aligned future

• What: Supporting the transition to a net zero global economy that is aligned with the Paris Agreement, focusing on real world emissions reductions, credible transition plans and longterm value creation. This means prioritising action this decade, limiting reliance on offsets, and considering just transition, nature and resilience alongside decarbonisation. 
   
• How: Using active stewardship to drive credible transition plans, with escalation where progress falls short. Setting clear expectations for companies on Paris aligned targets, governance, capital allocation and disclosure.
  
  For example, we may engage a company to tighten interim Scope 1–3 emissions targets, strengthen board‑level accountability for climate strategy, improve disclosure of material Scope 3 categories, or redirect capital towards credible low‑carbon technologies where existing transition plans fall short of Paris alignment.

Just transition: Driving a fair, inclusive climate transition 

• What: Just transition recognises that a shift to a low-carbon economy can have inequitable impacts across people and society. It seeks to manage these impacts fairly by promoting decent work (supporting workers’ dignity, livelihoods, and long-term prospects), social dialogue, and equitable access to the benefits of the transition. This includes addressing issues such as job displacement, affordability, and the resilience of local economies.
• How: Supporting a just transition by engaging companies in high‑impact sectors to aim to treat workers and communities fairly, protect local livelihoods, and manage the social impacts of decarbonisation.

   

  This includes encouraging companies to plan for workforce transitions, provide skills development where needed, and support communities that may be affected by changes in industrial activity. Our engagement focuses on ensuring climate action is fair, inclusive and socially responsible, so the transition works for the people most affected

Just adaptation: Building fair, inclusive climate resilience

• What: Just adaptation is about preparing for the impacts of climate change in a fair, inclusive and socially responsible way. It aims to minimise harmful social impacts and maximise benefits for the communities most affected by climate change. This includes recognising diverse needs, ensuring meaningful participation, and promoting adaptation solutions that look to deliver co‑benefits so that no one is left behind.
• How: Encouraging companies to develop adaptation plans that account for social impacts and aim to protect vulnerable groups. We engage to strengthen corporate resilience planning, support meaningful stakeholder participation and prevent maladaptation. We also encourage adaptation approaches that could deliver wider co‑benefits and promote greater transparency.

Climate and nature: Connecting climate action with nature protection

• What: Strengthening the link between climate action and nature protection by recognising how the two systems interact — for example, how climate change accelerates biodiversity loss and how degraded ecosystems undermine climate resilience.
• How: Encouraging companies to integrate nature considerations into climate stewardship and transition assessments, ensuring decarbonisation strategies do not harm ecosystems.
  
  We will use a systems‑based approach to engagement, asking companies how climate strategies impact nature outcomes and encouraging solutions with co‑benefits across environmental domains.

Just nature: Fair, inclusive solutions for nature’s resilience

• What: Ensuring that nature restoration and protection efforts are fair, inclusive, and socially responsible - supporting communities, workers, Indigenous peoples, and supply chains affected by nature-related decisions.
• How: Helping companies embed social considerations into their nature strategies by encouraging them to develop plans that address livelihoods, local impacts and stakeholder participation.
  
  We will focus on ensuring companies involve relevant communities in decision‑making, improve disclosure on nature and social impacts, and strengthen responsible sourcing practices so that benefits and burdens are shared fairly.

Land and water management: Preserving natural capital

• What: Preserving natural capital by encouraging sustainable land and water practices across sectors with significant ecological footprints. This includes promoting responsible ecosystem management, improved biodiversity outcomes and better protection of habitats affected by company operations.
• How: Engaging companies to strengthen their land and water management practices by improving disclosure, adopting recognised frameworks and addressing the most material risks to biodiversity, habitats and water resources.
  
  We focus on encouraging companies to assess and manage their impacts responsibly, promote better transparency and contribute to sector‑wide improvements through engagement and policy advocacy.

Diversity: Enabling inclusive decision-making

• What: Promoting diverse representation — particularly at senior and executive levels — to strengthen decision‑making, risk oversight, and long‑term value creation. This includes gender and ethnic diversity goals aligned with industry benchmarks.
• How: Engaging companies through collaborative initiatives such as the UK 30% Club’s “Fix the Exec” working group, supported by direct dialogue, letters and escalation where progress is too slow.
  
  We also use our voting stance to reinforce expectations on leadership diversity and encourage companies to improve transparency and accountability for diversity outcomes.

Financial inclusion: Equal pay, equal access, inclusive growth

• What: Ensuring individuals and communities can participate meaningfully in the economy with fair access to financial services, improved transparency, and reduced structural barriers.
• How: Engaging companies to disclose meaningful pay gap data, develop credible plans to address disparities and improve oversight of remuneration policies. We reinforce expectations through voting and targeted engagement where progress is too slow.
  
  Our focus is on supporting fair pay practices that contribute to inclusive growth and long‑term value creation.

Human Rights: Protecting freedoms and rights

• What: Embedding human rights considerations into stewardship by focusing on salient risks across company operations and supply chains, particularly in high‑risk sectors such as food and agriculture.
• How: Engaging companies to improve disclosure and management of human rights issues such as forced labour, land and labour rights, supply‑chain due diligence and other risks identified through our assessments.
  
  We encourage companies to strengthen their human rights governance, improve transparency on labour practices and enhance the quality and availability of human rights information.

Business culture and ethics: Building resilience through ethics and human capital

• What: Promoting ethical conduct and healthy organisational culture by encouraging companies to strengthen codes of conduct, improve transparency around ethics‑related incidents and develop clearer approaches to assessing and monitoring workplace culture.
• How: Engaging companies to publish culture reviews, implement meaningful culture metrics, and enhance disclosure of ethical risks. Monitoring organisations by drawing on independent research and voting insights to surface emerging ethics or culture risks. Where concerns are identified, encouraging stronger codes of conduct, improved transparency, and more rigorous oversight of organisational culture.

Cyber security: Protecting assets and infrastructure

• What: Ensuring companies recognise cybersecurity as a financially material risk that affects operational continuity, reputation and long‑term value. We focus on how companies govern and manage cyber risks as part of resilient business practices.
• How: Encouraging companies to improve transparency around their cybersecurity governance and processes, given the material business risks. Assessing companies against our cyber‑security investor expectations that outline good practices across governance, supply‑chain and mergers & acquisitions (M&A) processes, culture and training, and external collaboration.
  
  These expectations inform our monitoring and engagement, helping us identify gaps in corporate cyber preparedness and support improvements.

Sustainable and Ethical AI:  Responsible technology that respects people and planet

• What: Promoting artificial intelligence (AI) systems that are safe, transparent, fair and environmentally responsible – ensuring that technology enhances wellbeing, avoids harm and aligns with globally recognised ethical principles while its associated processes and systems have minimal impact on the environment.
• How: Engaging companies to strengthen AI governance by improving oversight, conducting risk and impact assessments, and increasing transparency and accountability. Our AI expectations also cover environmental sustainability – including managing the environmental impact such as energy and water intensity of AI models and data centres, using renewable power for data centres, reducing the carbon footprint of AI infrastructure and supporting responsible sourcing across the AI value chain. 
  
  We also encourage companies to address ethical and societal risks such as bias, privacy and misuse, helping ensure AI contributes positively to people and the planet.

You can learn more in our latest Stewardship and Responsible Investment Report.

Please note that our responsible investment activities – voting and engagement may not apply uniformly across all Royal London Asset Management products, as each has its own distinct investment objectives. For details of the specific outcomes for an investment, please refer to the relevant prospectus or product material.

For professional investors only. This material is not suitable for a retail audience. Capital at risk. This is a financial promotion and is not investment advice. Past performance is not a guide to future performance. The value of investments and any income from them may go down as well as up and is not guaranteed. Investors may not get back the amount invested. The views expressed are those of the Royal London Asset Management at the date of publication unless otherwise indicated, which are subject to change, and is not investment advice.