Kennox does not seek any sustainability outcome for the Company nor purports to sell or market its products on the basis of any sustainability or ESG criteria or characteristics.
We invest responsibly, always considering the long-term impacts of our investment decisions. Alongside other considerations, Environmental, social and corporate governance (ESG) is an important part of our investment process.
Intractable societal problems are complex, and any solution will involve painful trade-offs with no easy answers. “Ethical” issues such as diversity, climate change, inequality across groups or genders are especially complicated – if simple and easy answers existed, the problems would have been solved by now.
To make it more complicated, ethics are inherently subjective. Individuals can and do hold enormously differing views to each other. Which one should prevail? Groups across geographies, religions, and societies actively disagree with each other’s ethical views. And society’s ethics regularly evolve or change outright (i.e., opium used to be legal, US’s prohibition of alcohol, the legality of homosexuality, euthanasia).
Any solution therefore must consider a multi-ethical framework, i.e. there are no universally accepted ethical absolutes.
Even in ambiguity, Kennox can have a sensible and logical framework. We lay out our thinking as follows:
Kennox & Sustainability
The basis of our investment process is in analysing the core issues for a company, both strengths and weaknesses, to best understand the sustainability of its earnings and its franchise. As long-term investors, ESG-related factors are an important ingredient in this assessment, affecting as they do the future sustainability of the company.
If we assess that a company or an industry causes significant net harm to society at large, we will not invest at any price. This assessment is viewed as the widest balance of all its activities and interactions with stakeholders, including employees, customers, suppliers, the environment, and other aspects of society at large. For example, under this framework we will not invest in gambling, tobacco, pornography or armament companies.
Kennox must be willing to take contrarian positions. Kennox is willing to take a stance against views in the marketplace if we assess that consensus to be misguided. For instance, if we assess that a company or industry provides a service that is suboptimal on one measure in the view of the market, but overall necessary to the smooth functioning of our society at large, Kennox will judge this industry to be investible. The case for fossil fuels falls into this at present – exclusion on ethical grounds is inconsistent with society’s absolute dependence on affordable energy.
Any assessment is complex and subjective. In essence, our assessment is to consider the strategic issues that a responsible and sensible company director faces to ensure the sustainability of the business franchise, as measured over decades, not quarters. By its nature this is a complex, often qualitative assessment, and always involves trade-offs and balancing a wide range of interests. In this area, Kennox’s view is that pragmatism is worth more than idealism.
Once we assess an industry to be investible, it is important that our investee companies should be responsible and progressive, especially in the difficult areas (i.e. fossil fuels). Once Kennox assesses an industry to be investible, Kennox will seek out the leaders and engage with them to improve as much as possible, encouraging them to be progressive.
ESG should be fully integrated into the investment process. Our investment team is fully responsible for both the Kennox ESG policy and its implementation – there is no better way to ensure that ESG is fully integrated in all aspects of our investment discussion and decision-making.
Stewardship & Engagement
In the regular course of work, the Kennox investment team assesses and discusses key stewardship issues for individual companies. These can be strategic (such as acquisitions), financial (such as acceptable levels of debt) and ESG considerations (such as climate, working conditions, diversity).
Regularly, this will lead to Kennox deciding to engage with a company on an issue. When it occurs, Kennox opens discussion with the company so as to understand the nuances regarding the issues and the company’s perspective. Where escalation is needed, we will challenge a company on the issue, and continue to challenge, as long as necessary.
Kennox believes that voting is a key right and responsibility of investors. We vote at all the shareholder meetings of our investee companies, ensuring that our votes are aligned with the long-term interests of our clients. We pay particular attention to specific issues, such as executive remuneration and share dilution and ESG issues but consider all issues relating to the company when casting our vote.
Where appropriate, Kennox collaborates with other shareholders and stakeholders. Kennox is a member of the Investor Forum, a group of investors set up to work together to facilitate dialogue with companies and create value through long term solutions.
We participate in active ownership of the stocks in the Fund’s portfolio through commitment and adherence to the UK Stewardship Code. Please see our ESG, Stewardship and Engagement policy and, in accordance with SRD II, our voting record is publicly disclosed.
If you would like to discuss any aspect of our approach to responsible investing, we would be pleased to hear from you.
We regularly discuss ESG in our Thinking aloud Papers.