- OVERVIEW
- INTEGRATION & ENGAGEMENT
- SOLUTIONS
- REPORTING CENTER
- PROXY VOTING
Investment Teams Lead the Way
At AB, our Responsible Investing team helps portfolio managers and analysts consider and engage on material ESG risks and opportunities holistically and consistently, challenging investment teams’ thinking and encouraging analysts to incorporate this perspective into their financial models and outlooks. This robust approach helps teams consider material ESG risks and opportunities throughout their investment processes—ultimately driving better client outcomes.
Process in Action
Equip Our Investment Professionals with Education, Tools and Processes
Identify and Assess Materiality of ESG Risks and Opportunities
Engage with Issues on ESG Risks and Opportunities
Document ESG/Engagement Research and Conclusions
Incorporate ESG Findings into Models and Company Research
Integrate ESG Conclusions into Portfolio Decisions
The Active Engagement Advantage
Engagement is important to our process as active investors. Each year, AB analysts engage with leaders of companies and noncorporate entities, including municipalities, supranational and sovereign issuers. We also engage selectively through our proxy-voting activities.
These connections allow us to assess, discuss and encourage better business practices and approaches to address rapidly evolving material ESG issues. We believe that engagement can drive better research and better outcomes for our clients.
$27 Billion
in Portfolios with Purpose
$555 Billion
in assets managed with ESG integrated into the investment process
11,460
meetings with company management teams in 2024
1,200+
stakeholders registered for the Climate Change and Investment Academy 2.0
Climate Academy
AB and the Columbia Climate School are partnering to address the risks and opportunities related to climate change.
How Does Engagement Make a Difference?
We engage with issuers for two main reasons: to generate research insights (such as learning more about an issuer’s corporate strategies and competitive positioning) or for example, to encourage issuers to better address material ESG risks or take advantage of ESG opportunities, in our clients’ best interests). We believe that as active managers, our access to and engagement with issuers can enhance risk-adjusted returns. We engage with issuers in several ways: through fundamental engagement (including thematic and proxy-voting engagement), policy advocacy and collaborative engagement.
Fundamental
We engage directly with issuers and stakeholders as part of our research and investment process for equities, fixed income and other asset classes. Constructive engagements create a channel to discuss topics such as strategy, business operations and material ESG issues. This includes thematic engagement, where we may develop a framework to engage issuers on themes that are common across many issuers, or engaging issuers as part of our proxy-voting process.
Policy Advocacy
We engage with governments, regulators and other drivers of public policy when we believe it’s in our clients’ best interests. These engagements take the form of comment letters, appearances at formal meetings of regulatory bodies, and direct engagement with key government stakeholders. They often center on investment impacts or stewardship concerns related to existing or proposed regulatory changes, including effects on share classes, reporting requirements or the treatment of ESG risks.
Collaboration
We sometimes work with non-AB investors, asset owners and/or industry organizations on engagements. This can happen when we’ve independently arrived at the same conclusion as other managers/investors and believe that collaboration might help address specific issues.
Collaborate, Explore, Advance
Proprietary Research-Collaboration Platforms
We’ve developed innovative platforms that power collaboration between our analysts within and across asset classes as we research and engage with issuers.
ESIGHT
ESIGHT is a one-stop online shop where AB investment teams can access and share proprietary information about corporate ESG practices. The platform shares ESG issuer assessments, proxy-voting history, engagements, and third-party research from MSCI and Sustainalytics. It’s also a knowledge center with a wealth of ESG information, including thematic sell-side research reports, academic studies, nongovernment entity reports and our own proprietary ESG ratings.
PRISM
Our proprietary credit-rating and scoring system, PRISM, provides independent ESG assessments and scores that affect investment decisions. The goal, of course, is straightforward: better and faster information can empower better decisions.
PRISM: Unlocking the Power of ESG Data
A new approach to credit research helps portfolio managers make better and faster investment decisions.
