Active ownership is the way to positive change

When you invest with Danske Invest, you are helping to make a difference because we focus on influencing the companies you invest in to become more sustainable. We do this both to protect and increase the return potential of your investments and to contribute to the positive development of society.

We exercise active ownership in three ways

We are in dialogue with the executive management of companies

We vote at the general meetings of companies

We collaborate with other investors and organisations






Danske Invest – a strong voice for sustainability

By investing in our funds, you gain a strong voice when it comes to sustainability. Not only do we invest on your behalf, but we also invest on behalf of hundreds of thousands of other investors – and this puts us in a strong position to influence companies to act more responsibly. Our voice is listened to because we represent a significant proportion of a company’s shares or bonds. This enables us to influence companies to reduce their climate impact, to create greater diversity on their boards, to reduce pollution, to create safe and healthy employee conditions, to live up to human rights, to fight corruption, and more.







Through dialogue we can:  

  • discuss and minimise corporate sustainability risks, thereby helping to protect your investments
  • influence companies to address sustainability challenges and address problematic issues
  • gain more insight into companies and use that knowledge to select the best possible investments
  • support companies in developing responsibly and contributing to the creation of a sustainable society

Read more

We take responsibility as an investor

At Danske Invest, we contribute most effectively to positive change by remaining invested in companies and taking responsibility. For this reason, we do not necessarily divest companies and turn our backs on them if challenges arise. Instead, we engage in constructive dialogue with the companies to exert pressure on them and help them resolve their challenges. We believe that this is the way to create real change. 

Exclusion as a last resort

It may take time for companies to improve – and we support them in the long term through active dialogue. If we assess that a company is not sufficiently improving over time, and if we see no further means of exerting pressure on company management, we may divest the investment, exclude the company and put it on our Investment Restrictions list.






Using our voting rights at general meetings

When we invest on your behalf, we have the opportunity to vote at the general meetings of companies. We exercise this right in order to ensure that the companies take sustainability issues into consideration and minimise their negative impact on society. On our digital voting platform, we disclose how we vote on proposals at general meetings. Visit the platform
 


Voting guidelines

Our voting guidelines direct how we vote on proposals at general meetings. The overall guiding principle behind how we vote is to improve and protect your investments. The guidelines address, for example, how we vote on financial matters, the remuneration of the board of directors, the capital structure and shareholders’ rights. There are also a number of guiding principles for how we vote on sustainability issues, including 
CO2 emissions, energy efficiency, gender diversity, use of renewable energy, biodiversity, water and sanitation, worker and human rights, child labour, and anti-corruption.
 
View our Voting Guidelines
 






Making a difference through collaboration

We are a member of a number of investor organisations and initiatives. Through such memberships, we aim to contribute to the development of responsible investments and to promote transparency and sustainability standards in companies and in the financial markets. 
By collaborating with other investors, we can exert greater influence on companies and contribute more to positive change. Hence, your investments help put additional pressure on companies to reduce their climate impact or to respect human rights, for example.

We work with:
 
Carbon Disclosure Project
The organisation encourages companies and cities to publish details of their climate impact, with the primary objective of reducing greenhouse gas emissions from companies and mitigating the consequences of climate change. By collecting and sharing information on greenhouse gas emissions and climate strategies, the organisation enables investors to reduce climate-related risks in their investments. 
Read more about the organisation here.

Climate Action 100+
Climate Action 100+ is a large investor-led initiative that engages companies in dialogue relating to the climate agenda. Together with more than 500 global investors, we are in dialogue with the companies that have the highest levels of CO2 emissions worldwide. The purpose of this is to make these companies reduce their climate impact in accordance with the climate objectives of the Paris Agreement and to improve their reporting on CO2 emissions. The association is in dialogue with companies in the oil and gas industries, the supply and mining sectors, the transportation sector, industrial companies and the consumer sector.
Read about the organisation here.

Montreal Carbon Pledge
As part of our ambition to support the green transition, Danske Bank has become a signatory to the Montreal Carbon Pledge. This means that we report on the carbon footprint of our ESG investment products.
Read more about the initiative here.

Partnership for Carbon Accounting Financials
Through Danske Bank Asset Management, we a member of the Partnership for Carbon Accounting Financials, which is a global partnership for financial institutions. The purpose of the collaboration is to develop and implement a standard for analysing and reporting greenhouse gas emissions from investments and lending.
Read more about the partnership here.

The UN Principles for Responsible Investment
Our Responsible Investment Policy is aligned with the UN Principles for Responsible Investment (UN PRI), which is a UN-supported member organisation that works to understand how ESG factors affect investment. The organisation supports members in integrating sustainability into their investment and active ownership activities. Danske Bank has been a member of the UN PRI since 2010, and we have signed up to the organisation’s six principles for responsible investments, which form the foundation of our work in the field of responsible investment. We report annually to the UN PRI on our processes and our progress in implementing the six principles into our responsible investment work.
View the UN PRI ratings for Danske Bank Asset Management here (Link to Policy & Reporting sub site) 
Read about the six principles here.

The institutional Investors Group on Climate Change
The institutional Investors Group on Climate Change (IIGCC) focuses on reducing climate change. The alliance has more than 250 members, and its mission is to mobilise capital for the green transition and to contribute to creating a robust society that can manage climate change. This is achieved through cooperating with companies, politicians, investors and other stakeholders. The IIGCC contributes to creating regulation, investment practices and company strategies that address the long-term risks and opportunities associated with climate change.
Read more about the IIGCC here.

Sustainability Accounting Standards Board
We work with the Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB) to apply the board’s knowledge of and competencies in analysing business-critical ESG factors. The SASB’s ambition is to help companies identify, manage and report on the ESG factors that are most important to investors. We encourage companies to use the SASB’s reporting method because this will enable investors to compare the companies’ ESG performance against each other. Being able to make such comparisons increases transparency about key ESG issues, which strengthens the ability of investors to manage sustainability risks and to include ESG criteria in investment decisions.
Read more about the SASB here.

Sustainable investment forums
We are a member of the Danish, Norwegian, Swedish and Finnish branches of the Sustainable Investment Forum (SIF). The mission of the SIF is to promote knowledge and the exchange of responsible-investment experience and to contribute with analysis and data in this field.

Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures
We are a member of the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD) initiative, which develops ways for companies to report their climate-related financial risks to investors, lenders and other stakeholders. We believe that the TCFD’s recommendations help companies to understand the information needs of financial businesses so that these businesses can respond to potential climate-related financial risks. At the same time, the initiative encourages companies to report climate-related issues that align with the needs of investors. We encourage companies to report on climate-related risks in accordance with the TCFD recommendations. We believe this will help companies to take the correct green steps and create future-proof businesses.
Read more about the TCFD here.

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