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* Wants all investee companies to use TCFD reporting
* Expects more climate-linked shareholder votes
* Says backed all U.S. climate-focused resolutions in 2019
By Simon Jessop
LONDON, Feb 14 (Reuters) - German fund manager Allianz
Global Investors is pushing every company it invests in to
improve their climate-related disclosures ahead of the season
for annual shareholder meetings.
Allianz GI, which manages 557 billion euros ($605.18
billion) as part of insurer Allianz, said it had
updated its Global Corporate Governance Guidelines and would
push companies to do more to manage what it said was a critical
risk.
Specifically, it wants every company to use the Taskforce
for Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD) framework for
assessing the impact of climate risk on their business, an
initiative kick-started by the Financial Stability Board.
Now with more than 1,000 signatories globally, the TFCD -
championed by the United Nations' incoming climate finance
envoy, Mark Carney - is seen by many as a crucial tool in
helping investors make more informed decisions on climate risk.
Eugenia Unanyants-Jackson, AllianzGI's global head of
research into environmental, social and governance-related
issues, said she expects to see more shareholder resolutions
linked to climate change in 2020, with a broadening out from
energy companies to other sectors such as financial services.
British lender Barclays last month became the first
European bank to face the prospect of such a vote, in an action
coordinated by responsible investment lobby group ShareAction,
although pressure is building on peers globally.
"We will... show our support for proposals that seek to hold
companies to account, through transparent information sharing,
on climate related financial, physical, transition and
regulatory risks and how the company is managing those risks."
In a review of its voting practices in 2019, AllianzGI said
it had voted on nearly 100,000 resolutions - from pay to board
composition and strategy - at 9,532 company meetings and opposed
24% of all resolutions globally, unchanged on the prior year.
AllianzGI supported all of the climate-linked shareholder
resolutions at its U.S. investee companies as they had all
targeted companies for which climate was a material business
risk, seeking information or the formulation of plans to align
strategy with the Paris climate accord.
"Those kind of proposals are definitely in the interest of
investors and are something we like, support and encourage,"
Unanyants-Jackson said.
After 145 climate-linked resolutions were filed in the
United States last year - including at leading oil company
ExxonMobil - the U.S. regulator is mulling plans to
limit their future use in a move that has drawn the ire of some
leading investors.
($1 = 0.9161 euros)
(Editing by Kirsten Donovan)
