Trustees of pension schemes and charities who want to adopt a comprehensive responsible investment policy are downloading the AMNT’s Red Line Voting information pack from our new dedicated website, www.redlinevoting.org. It is attracting particular interest from those determined to adopt a meaningful policy with regard to climate change.

The groundbreaking new initiative was launched at London’s Guildhall last month and support is growing. The initiative aims to enable particularly the small and medium sized asset owners – those with under £5-billion of assets under management, and those who invest in pooled funds – to adopt policies not only on corporate governance but also social and environmental issues.

AMNT has consulted widely and worked closely with the UK Sustainable Investment and Finance Association, and with ShareAction. It took substantial advice from the global organisation CDP in formulating the environmental Red Lines and CDP has stated that, if widely adopted, this policy could be “a game changer” in driving corporate change in relation to climate change.

Trustees of small schemes that had been advised to delegate their responsible investment policy to their fund managers wanted a way to set their own policy, along with those investing in pooled funds who had been told they could not direct the votes associated with those investments.

Red Line Voting sets out a series of clear, tightly drawn, voting instructions – ‘Red Lines’ that UK-listed companies should not cross. Trustee boards can adopt all of them or just some and instruct their fund managers to vote accordingly at company meetings. Fund managers may receive instructions from many investors but as they are the same instructions they are easier to manage.

Now that the means exists for every pension scheme to fulfil their fiduciary duty as clarified by the Law Commission and adopt a meaningful policy on climate change, social issues and corporate governance, AMNT expects pension scheme professional advisers to take full advantage of it and draw their clients’ attention to it as early as possible.