State Street Global Advisors exec on climate accountability and engagement in 2022

State Street Global Advisors, the world's third-largest provider of exchange-traded funds, is expecting more action and transparency from companies in 2022 on climate change and social issues – and it wants to use its influence to drive that change.

"We view divestment as the last resort," says Karen Wong, who is Global Head of ESG and Sustainable Investing at State Street Global Advisors. "We do believe overall that it's absolutely important to have the voting and engagement in our toolkit to drive changes."

In 2022, the ESG Insider podcast will be talking with large asset managers around the world about their policies and practices on key ESG topics because they can play a critical role in pressing companies to review and address those issues.

In this episode, Karen outlines some of the circumstances under which State Street Global Advisors would vote against a company's directors, the new expectations the asset manager is setting for climate and workforce diversity-related disclosures, and how the firm is handling evolving regulations, including the EU's Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation, or SFDR.,

Listen to our related podcast episode that explores what SFDR is and why it's important: https://soundcloud.com/esginsider/eu-revolutionizes

We'd love to hear from you! To give us feedback on this episode or share ideas for future episodes, please contact hosts Lindsey Hall (lindsey.white@spglobal.com) and Esther Whieldon (esther.whieldon@spglobal.com).

Photo credit: State Street Global Advisors