PLSA uses Minerva's briefing as supporting evidence for their voting guidelines

February 21st, 2024

The Pensions and Lifetime Savings Association (PLSA) used Minerva Analytics data as supporting evidence for its voting guidelines. 

The PLSA has released its Stewardship and Voting Guidelines 2024, which sets out a framework on how key issues need to be considered by pension schemes in their stewardship. 

The report used data from Minerva Analytics to support its proposals, including our statistics from the Minerva Briefing 2023 Proxy Season Review.  

The guidelines included Minerva's findings that in the 2023 proxy voting season, results for ESG-focused resolutions were mixed with more shareholder proposals but lower support, and regional variations. 

The guidance highlighted that remuneration is a particular area of focus for investors, which has grown in importance since the introduction of new disclosure requirements by the Companies (Miscellaneous Reporting) Regulations 2018. The PLSA included our data that in the 2023 voting season, 143 companies put forward remuneration policy votes, of which 18 received high dissent, a fall from the 20 of 111 resolutions in 2022. 

The guide includes a policy framework for corporate governance and stewardship, the PLSA’s corporate governance policy, the PLSA’s voting guidelines and an explanation of what stewardship and engagement are. 

This year the PLSA has updated its voting and stewardship guidelines with a new section on social factors, highlighting the work conducted by the Taskforce for Social Factors (TSF). 

In October, the TSF published a guide with more than 30 recommendations aimed at providing pension trustees with the tools to identify and monitor social risks and opportunities. 

The guidelines included Minerva data on shareholder proposals in the social space, which found in the 2023 proxy voting season most shareholder proposals were related to human rights and workforce issues.