Nickel Industries: climate change and board diversity

Nov 2022

Engagement type One-to-one

Our engagement

We engaged with Nickel Industries several times regarding its governance and disclosure. We were encouraged to see that the company published its first sustainability report in 2022, demonstrating an improving commitment to transparency and more disclosure on their initiatives to reduce carbon emissions. The sustainability report included a plausible emissions reduction pathway as well as greenhouse gas emissions disclosure which led to an upgrade in our proprietary sustainability rating for the company. The company’s main product, Nickel, is core to decarbonisation technologies such as EVs; however, it tends to have very carbon-intensive processes and its decarbonization is important for the lifecycle emissions of EVs.

The outcome

Despite additional disclosures and emission reduction initiatives, we voted against one of the directors because the company failed to set carbon emission targets and it failed our board diversity minimum threshold of having at least 30% women in the board. All proposals were passed at the meeting; however, the remuneration report received 38% against of votes cast and received a first strike. We will continue our engagements with the company on diversity, remuneration and broader sustainability issues in the coming year.