Sanlam

In terms of governance, the financial institution’s highest governance body is responsible for decision-making and oversight of the sustainability strategy. Implementation of the sustainability strategy is assigned to various functions, teams, or committees. Moreover, performance criteria for senior executive remuneration are also linked to specific sustainability targets.

The financial institution has a publicly available policy statement which commits to respecting human rights. Additionally, specific actions taken to align lobbying and public policy engagement with the sustainability strategy are disclosed. Key sectors, clients, and investees for climate engagement are transparently identified, as well as partnerships are formed to influence and support sectors, clients, and investees regarding their nature-related impacts.

The financial institution provides an example of how its products, services, and capital support societal climate adaptation and resilience. Moreover, it monitors other scope 3 emissions by category, as well as discloses its operations by country, including metrics such as the number of employees or revenue.

The financial institution does not make political contributions according to its reporting but could formalise this in a public policy document. It identifies material sustainability impacts across its value chain but could provide more detail on its process for prioritising these impacts including objective criteria used. Furthermore, there is an opportunity to disclose a group-level stewardship policy that aligns with its sustainability strategy. While the financial institution lists its memberships of some trade associations, this does not represent a full list. Although the entity discloses principles informing its climate lobbying, it could disclose a commitment to not using lobbying to create adverse sustainability impacts.

The financial institution refers to nature protection but has the opportunity to disclose a strategy for nature protection/restoration covering its priority sectors and areas. It should also disclose the aggregate amount of products and services provided to nature-positive solutions and establish a transition plan for its operations and supply chain. Additional recommendations include disclosing client breakdowns by income group and processes to avoid divestment from low-income countries due to unintended consequences of sustainability strategies.

Finally, the financial institution’s risk assessment process includes some ILO fundamental rights but could cover the full set. While it mentions human rights risk mitigation, it should disclose a process for addressing risks associated with ILO rights and provide examples of actions taken on salient human rights issues from the past three years.

This scorecard refers to information in English which was publicly available by July 15 2024. AuM and Total assets are stated in USD for comparability and have been calculated based on reported local currency values multiplied by applicable IMF currency converter values.