Stewardship in AQTION

AQTION, a database powered by SquareWell Partners, has released the second edition of its annual Stewardship in AQTION study. This publication offers a deep dive into how the world’s largest 65 institutional investors—managing nearly USD 91 trillion in assets—are addressing environmental, social, and governance (ESG) topics and stewarding their portfolios.

This year’s edition builds on AQTION’s proprietary database and introduces new insights, including how investors are approaching emerging themes such as artificial intelligence. The study maintains consistency with last year’s analysis while incorporating notable updates, including a shift in the investor universe and new real-world case studies—such as the 2024 proxy contest at Walt Disney and shareholder approval of Elon Musk’s compensation package at Tesla.

Some other key takeaways include:

• 58 (of the 65) investors have set-up stewardship teams.
• Fund managers are involved in the final decision-making process at 44 (of the 65) investors.
• 50 (of the 65) investors have selected ISS as the primary proxy advisors, with Glass Leweis being selected by 9 investors. Schroders is one investor to have switched from ISS to Glass Lewis.
• Only 9 (out of the 65) investors have a high reliance on the recommendations of the proxy advisors.
• 57 (out of the 65) investors have adopted their own voting guidelines. Within these policies they communicate their views on a wide range of topics, ranging from board composition to capital allocation.
  • A topic of concern is one-off (or exceptional) awards, which 34 have communicated clear guidelines (see below for investor behaviour at banks in 2025).
  • On Scope 3 emissions, 43 have disclosed an expectation.
• 56 (of the 65) investors disclose their votes, of which 26 also provide vote rationales (as shown below).
• MSCI has been selected by 54 (of the 65) investors as a ESG Ratings provider, followed by Sustainalytics and ISS-ESG.
• Although there has been high profile departures, we note that still half of the top 65 investors support the Climate Action 100+ while one-third supports Nature Action 100.
• 41 (out of the 65) investors publish position papers on environmental and social topics.
  • 13 investors have written about supply chain risks, while 26 have written on Artificial Intelligence.
• 39 (out of the 65) investors disclose how they evaluate activism situations, and 15 investors have, at one time, filed (or co-filed) a shareholder proposal related to “ESG”.

You can request the full study here.