Sustainalytics provides a variety of corporate governance research, advisory, and administrative services to institutional investors. These include research on governance standards and compliance among listed companies, analysis of general meeting resolutions, proxy voting advice, customised templates, outsourced vote execution, reporting on proxy voting activity, and auditing of third party actions. Sustainalytics provides these services in close cooperation with the European Corporate Governance Services (ECGS).

Sustainalytics aims to provide efficient and professional solutions to institutional investors who aim to take a more engaged approach towards corporate governance. Sustainalytics provides a range of services that can be tailored to the specific needs of clients. This range of services enables Sustainalytics to offer clients a full service solution to their corporate governance needs. Such as policy advice, research, vote execution, and reporting.

Policy advice
Sustainalytics provides policy advice for institutional investors on corporate governance, voting policies, and all aspects of vote execution, implementation, and reporting. In providing related advice, Sustainalytics takes account of best practice standards in the Netherlands, as well as those of other European and international markets. Together with its ECGS partners, Sustainalytics has published the European Corporate Governance Principles, a reference document of current best practice standards that the largest European companies should aspire to. They are derived from a combination of national and international codes of best practice, as well as the market experience of ECGS members themselves.

Proxy voting research
In order to allow investors to make informed voting decisions, Sustainalytics provides access to independent research and proxy-voting advice on the shareholder meetings of more than 2,500 European, American, and Asian companies. Through its membership in the ECGS, Sustainalytics provides access to ECGS Profiles, which are prepared well ahead of shareholder meetings and which include a detailed analysis of the meeting agenda, vote recommendations, and complementary information on corporate governance structures.

Customised research and corporate governance data
Sustainalytics has access to a wealth of high quality corporate governance data on European and US corporations. Sustainalytics can provide customised corporate governance research on a wide range of topics. For clients who want to conduct their own analysis and research, Sustainalytics can provide direct access to the corporate governance data of ECGS.

Vote execution
For institutional investors that would like to outsource vote execution to a third party, Sustainalytics can provide a total service package that will be tailored to the specific needs of the client. Making use of third-party voting platforms, Sustainalytics provides a standard service vote execution in line with recommendations of the ECGS. Alternatively, Sustainalytics can provide customised voting in line with client guidelines. Based on a standard voting template that is defined with the client, consistent and high-quality voting advice can be provided in line with client needs.

Reporting
For all its services, Sustainalytics provides regular reporting on its actions towards clients in a standard or customised format. Frequency and format of reporting can be customised to clients’ needs. In addition, Sustainalytics can also provide tailored IT solutions to facilitate reporting on corporate governance policies and actions via client websites. Sustainalytics has a long-standing cooperation with a Dutch IT provider to tailor solutions to clients’ particular needs.