Willis Towers Watson

WTW assigns the responsibility for sustainability issues within the financial institution to the board-level Governance Committee. The financial institution publicly commits to gender equality and women’s empowerment and discloses a target to achieve gender parity in senior leadership by 2030. WTW has a gender-balanced board of directors where 44% of members are women. It describes its approach to investor engagement on sustainability themes and impact topics, including the approach to engagement escalation. It also publishes a stewardship report aligned with the UK Stewardship Code and provides cases studies of successful engagement with investees.

As a member of the Net Zero Investment Consultants Initiative, WTW has set a target of net-zero financed emissions by 2050 and aims to halve its emissions from investment advisory services, fully discretionary services and own business operations by 2030. It discloses that it engages with all asset managers on climate topics, specifically on the topic of alignment with the Paris Agreement. The financial institution aims to double its allocation to climate solutions from its discretionary investment portfolios by 2030. Furthermore, WTW discloses forestry, land use and biodiversity as one of its engagement topics with investees.

WTW has a publicly available policy statement committing it to respect human rights. It has a grievance mechanism accessible to all workers, external individuals and communities to raise human rights complaints or concerns. The financial institution has a publicly available policy statement which shows it is committed to respecting the health and safety of workers. It also has a policy prohibiting bribery and corruption.

In terms of its approach to senior leadership accountability, WTW could link the remuneration of its executive or management teams to sustainability performance criteria. It also has an opportunity to reach at least 40% female representation in senior leadership positions, to disclose the ratio of basic salary and remuneration of women to men in its total direct operations workforce for each employee category and to disclose the actions taken to address any pay gaps. Furthermore, WTW could publish case studies describing where it has engaged unsuccessfully with investees on sustainability themes and impact topics.

While WTW encourages asset managers to set a 1.5°C-aligned stewardship strategy, it has an opportunity to make this a requirement. The financial institution could also disclose the aggregate amount or share of investments it devotes to climate solutions. No evidence was found regarding WTW’s approach to fossil fuels that spans across the fossil fuel value chain and assets under management, such as the amount or share of investment it directs towards fuels, or its stance on investing in companies with new fossil fuel projects. WTW could also commit to minimising the negative impacts it has on nature and biodiversity.

WTW has an opportunity to describe a comprehensive process for identifying its human rights risks and impacts across all its activities, especially its investment activities. Additionally, it could disclose the proportion of its total direct operations workforce for each employee category by age group. To provide transparency on financial inclusivity, WTW has an opportunity to disclose the amount of finance directed towards low-income developing countries.