Columbia Threadneedle: CT SDG Engagement Global Equity Strategy

Welcome to our engagement progress report for the CT SDG Engagement Global Equity Strategy, for the fiscal year ending 31st March 2024.

‘Another extraordinary and distinctive year!’ seems to be the regular refrain when we gather to collect our thoughts for our annual strategy review, and it is no different this year. There is a palpable sense of enduring tumult across the economic, political and natural world. The world’s second largest economy, China, has grappled with a severe downturn, which sent ripples out around the world but subsequently sharply rallied; more than 80 countries and more than half the world’s population are going to the ballot box in 2024, multiple major conflicts are underway and the world continues to witness extraordinarily fast-changing climatic conditions, which typically incur greatest disruption and hardship on the world’s developing regions.

Although we have known that the timeline for achieving the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), set back in 2015 by the United Nations Member States, was likely to fall short of the original deadline, we continue to believe that the SDGs represent the clearest, simplest, and universal roadmap for creating a more sustainable world. We intend to stay the course and, as such, we remain truly motivated by the underlying ethos and objective of this Strategy, which is to deliver both positive, real world, non-financial outcomes, as well as to generate competitive financial returns for investors. In fiscal year 2024 (1st April 2023 to 31st March 2024), we reached another 38 improvement Milestones with our investee companies, and logged over 80 engagements, across a variety of sectors and sustainability issues. We introduced five new stocks to the portfolio, and sold six.

The CT SDG Engagement Global Equity Strategy has now registered its 5th anniversary since inception, and we would like to express our great thanks for the deep commitment and trust that our clients have shown us over the years since this ambitious twin mandate global strategy was launched.

We are living through a period of accelerating and sometimes unsettling change, but remain determined to mobilise capital towards a more sustainable future, using the SDGs as a framework. We thank you for your trust in us, and we will keep reporting on the progress that our Strategy and its investee companies are making.