Ms Deborah Meghen:

EOS works with us and with a wide range of clients. It has approximately €1.3 trillion under engagement. From our point of view, this means that we would have a number of very small holdings in many companies.

EOS aggregates all the different investors to look at the scale of those holdings. It then looks at the materiality assessment of companies to examine whether they are in breach of human rights or there are climate or governance issues. It then focuses on certain companies with which to engage. It is very much about being aware of what is going on at present. EOS recently reviewed its engagement plan and is now including in it regions of high risk for human rights. It considers issues in the likes of Myanmar, Ukraine and the West Bank and selects companies based on the materiality of their exposure and the extent to which the clients have holdings. It looks at the companies in which the clients have a large holding because that offers better leverage when engaging specifically with those companies. It specifically reached out recently to Booking.com, Airbnb and Expedia because the clients they represent, when their holdings are aggregated, would have a significant holding in respect of how they are operating and the UN guiding principles of business and human rights.

Engagement is about incremental change. It is absolutely not the panacea, particularly in difficult situations such as this, but it is about engaging with those companies to improve their businesses, how they deal with human rights in their companies and the issues that are raised. That is what EOS is doing. It is doing it with companies that are on the UN list and companies that are not. It is about looking from the clients' perspective how they aggregate holdings. It is about having that engagement to try to drive change. That is where engagement as a responsible investment tool is used not only by the likes of ISIF but by all asset managers and asset owners. We are members of the United Nations principles of responsible investment and that engagement piece is seen as a key tool to all asset owners and asset managers around driving change and responsible investment.