We believe that investment markets will only be as healthy as the environment and communities that support them.
Engaging for better public health is a key priority in our stewardship work. Our health stewardship covers a range of themes, including mental health and nutrition.
The strong correlation between human health and investment returns was clearly visible during the Covid-19 pandemic; we quickly learned that healthy companies require healthy workers.
The private sector undertakes many activities that affect people’s health, both positively and negatively. Within a company’s immediate sphere of influence, its approach to the health, safety and welfare of its own workforce can have a direct impact on its profitability. More broadly, the products or services that a company sells come with consequences for customers.
Where products or services have the most significant, unmitigable, negative impact upon public health, we restrict investment in the associated companies. For instance, CCLA applies a 5% revenue restriction to tobacco, that applies to all portfolios.
Initiatives
Improving mental health
We have developed the CCLA Corporate Mental Health Benchmarks which rate companies’ policies and processes for protecting the mental health of their staff.
Promoting healthier markets
From tackling obesity to addressing workplace ill-health, we believe investors can play a key role in promoting healthier markets.
Examples
Mental health benchmark
Sustainable Development Goal 3: Good Health and Wellbeing
In Q2, we launched the 2024 Corporate Mental Health Benchmark - UK 100. Now three years old, the benchmark ranks 101 UK-listed companies on their approach to workplace mental health into one of five performance tiers.
Since the publication of last year’s benchmark, we have been hard at work meeting these companies and explaining the social and economic value to be unlocked through concerted efforts to support their employees. Over the past 12 months, 70 UK-listed companies have engaged with us on this topic. The 2024 results reveal that 24 of the UK’s largest listed businesses have improved their performance tier since 2023. Since the first benchmark in 2022, a total of 45 UK companies have improved their tier, with wide ranging and profound implications for the health of employees worldwide. One of the highest ‘improvers’ is Experian, which has moved from Tier 3 to Tier 1 since 2022, making it one of the top six performers in the UK.
Nestlé
Sustainable Development Goal 3: Good Health and Wellbeing
On the back of prolonged engagement over the past two years together with ShareAction’s Healthy Markets Coalition and the Access to Nutrition Foundation, Nestlé agreed a set of new nutritional commitments:
benchmark and disclose the nutritional information of its products in 14 countries
raise the target age of marketing of unhealthy foods
cease marketing on gaming platforms where the user base is significantly comprised of under 16s.
cease the marketing of infant formula milk from 1st January 2023.