GES Engagement Forum

A process and a meeting point for active ownership

WHAT IS GES ENGAGEMENT FORUM?

GES Engagement Forum is a collaborative tool for an active ownership process, aiming at improving the less developed parts of a company's management systems. The forum offers a meeting point for investors to interact upon companies’ compliance with international norms on Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) issues.

THE PROCESS

The process is based on the same principles as GES Global Ethical Standard - a systematic screening of companies regarding their compliance with international conventions and guidelines on environment, human rights and corruption.

Alleged violations of norms are reported in a weekly e-mail alert. At the same time, the first dialogue is established with the reporting party and the criticised company. Since dialogue is one of the most effective tools for an investor to have an impact on management performance we have made it a distinguishing feature.

The initial findings are summarised in an incident analysis which concludes if the case should be pursued. After a risk analysis and further dialogue the case will be presented in the forum with full information as a case profile.

BASIS FOR ENGAGEMENT DECISION

Possible action plans are evaluated in the specific case and the clients can decide whether to support an engagement process or not. A transparent IT interface updates the clients on the process development in real time.

If the engagement goals are not achieved within the set period of time, the process continues at the annual general meeting either by supporting existing resolutions or by filing new ones from the forum.

The last option is to sell the share if all other means have failed. In such case, it is likely that the company does not agree with the view of the investor and an exit strategy appears reasonable.

COVERAGE

GES Engagement Forum covers major world indexes and can be customised with additional companies.

DEMO

Click here for a live demo.

For more information, please contact:
, President and Managing Director
, Managing Director, GES Investment Services Denmark
, Managing Director, GES Investment Services Poland
, Managing Director, GES Investment Services Switzerland