Norges Bank's work on responsible investing

As a shareholder, the GPFG can exercise ownership rights to influence company decisions and prospects. Shareholders exercise ownership rights primarily by voting at shareholder meetings. Norges Bank can hold the companies' boards accountable, and support or oppose its decisions. Norges Bank has established guidelines for voting, which provide general guidance on how the Bank will vote. The guidelines facilitate consistent and predictable voting. The Bank seeks to strengthen corporate governance, improve profitability and promote responsible business conduct. The overall goal is to promote the GPFG’s long-term interests.

Norges Bank seeks to contribute to good corporate governance and responsible business conduct through dialogue with companies. Norges Bank prioritises certain companies and topics that can be pursued over some time.

Norges Bank has published expectations of how companies in its portfolio should address global challenges in their operations (nbim.no). The expectations are based on standards such as the UN Global Compact and the OECD's guidelines for multinational companies, and largely coincide with the UN's sustainability goals. The expectations form the basis for the Bank's dialogue with companies, and the Bank annually assess the companies' activities against these expectations. The expectations are primarily directed toward boards of the companies in which the GPFG is invested. Norges Bank has prepared expectation documents in the following eight areas: climate change, water management, human rights, children's rights, tax transparency, anti-corruption, ocean sustainability and biodiversity and ecosystems.

Norges Bank supports the development of standards that safeguard the GPFG's interests as a long-term and universal owner. Through its work on standards, the bank seeks to contribute to well-functioning markets and good corporate governance by creating more equal and more sustainable conditions across markets. Better standards can, over time, influence companies' practices. Furthermore, the bank supports research that can support the work with responsible investment management. It is a goal to increase knowledge about how good corporate governance and sustainability relates to financial risk and return.