Norges Bank Investment Manager (NBIM), which manages the world's largest sovereign wealth fund, has revealed that it held 1,500 company meetings last year on the ESG issues with companies as it seeks to increase the pressure on companies to protect the environment.

In 2018 NBIM published its ‘expectations’ on ocean sustainability and anti-corruption and has made it clear that it will continue to press for further progress at the AGMs of the 9,000 companies it invests in.

“Our dialogue with companies and their boards is one of our most important tools as an owner. We have interacted with boards through dialogue and voting”, said Yngve Slyngstad, CEO of Norges Bank Investment Management. “We raised environmental, social or governance issues at 1,493 meetings. We engaged with companies on banks’ climate disclosure, lending and deforestation, tax and transparency at UK companies and the marketing of breast-milk substitutes. As a long-term owner, we prioritise strategic topics that we follow up over a number of years.”

The manager is also reported to be bringing ESG expertise in-house, dispensing with some external providers and using bespoke software to combine ESG data with trading data.

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