Lord Abbett

Lord Abbett publishes engagement and voting policies that include environmental, social, and governance (ESG) topics and escalation criteria. Moreover, the asset manager publishes its stewardship activities, including several successful engagements on sustainability and impact topics.

As a member of Climate Action 100+, Lord Abbett discloses that it collectively engages with its clients on the topic of climate change.

No leading practices were identified for the financial institution in the adhering to societal conventions measurement area.

It is not clear if Lord Abbett assigns responsibility for sustainability to the group’s highest governing body and could disclose it links the remuneration of its executive or management teams to sustainability performance criteria. The asset manager has an opportunity to disclose a commitment to gender equality and women’s empowerment, the proportion of women on the board of directors and in senior leadership roles, as well as how it addresses any gender pay gaps. Furthermore, Lord Abbett could publish how its ESG engagement is applied in practice and examples of unsuccessfully engagement cases with investees on related topics.

Lord Abbett has an opportunity to disclose a target to reach net-zero financed emissions by 2050 and the key sectors it has identified as priorities to engage with on climate change, specifically on the alignment with the Paris Agreement. Moreover, it could provide evidence of the financing activities devoted to climate solutions. Additionally, the asset manager does not provide evidence of a commitment to minizime its negative impacts on biodiversity. Lord Abbett can improve its performance by disclosing its approach to fossil fuels that spans across the fossil fuel value chain, such as the amount or share of finance it directs towards fuels or its stance on financing companies with new fossil fuel projects.

Lord Abbett could disclose publicly available policy statements committing it to respect human rights, the ILO core labour rights, and the health and safety of workers. While it takes into account human rights in its due diligence practices, Lord Abbett does not disclose a human rights due diligence process to identify its human rights risks and impacts in its activities. The asset manager discloses the ages of its board of directors and the proportion of women in its executive committee and total direct operations workforce but has an opportunity to disclose the age and gender of each employee category. To provide transparency on financial inclusivity, Lord Abbett has an opportunity to disclose the amount of finance directed towards women-owned businesses, small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), or low-income developing countries.