Being Better Stewards – our UK Stewardship Code Report for 2022

At Hymans, we encourage – and challenge – our clients to be better stewards, whether they work in pensions, financial services or personal wealth. Each year, the Financial Reporting Council (FRC) offers organisations the opportunity to become signatories to its Stewardship Code.

While we’re signatories to the Code, we don’t take this position for granted: we strive for ongoing improvement to earn our accreditation each year. And we’re proud to share our Stewardship Code report for 2022 here.

Highlights from the year included:

• The growth of our responsible investment team, which supported clients in meeting their TCFD requirements, developed methods for consulting on climate strategy, improved its scrutiny of managers and, most importantly, focused on our goal of ‘being better stewards’.

• A focus on the journey to net zero, as clients increasingly commit to the long-term decarbonisation of their asset portfolios. We’ve established our approach to modelling net zero pathways, and we’ve been pleased with our clients’ engagement as they take ambitious actions.

• Our survey of private market asset managers identified a climate data reporting gap. We saw this as an opportunity for engagement, pushing managers to do more.

• A positive outcome from our Climate Impact Initiative which called on defined contribution (DC) pension providers to launch products that allow savers to invest in climate-impact solutions. Around 10% of DC savers are now able to access a climate impact choice, up from around 2% just 12 months earlier.

• Insurers properly taking account of climate and ESG risks. Our risk-transfer team continues to enhance their scrutiny of potential providers, and we appointed a Head of ESG for Risk Transfer during the year.

Download report summary

Download full report

If you’d like to discuss anything that’s covered in our response in more detail, please get in touch.