TIAA

In terms of senior leadership accountability, the responsibility for sustainability issues within the financial institution lies with TIAA’s board of directors. In terms of female representation in leadership positions, the pension fund has a gender-balanced board of directors where 47% of its members are women. It has a stewardship report where it describes its engagement approach on sustainability themes and its engagement policy includes a clear framework with success criteria and escalation points. In addition, the pension fund publishes case studies describing where it has engaged both successfully and unsuccessfully with investees on sustainability themes and impact topics.

TIAA discloses that alignment with the Paris Agreement is one of its engagement topics and, as a member of Climate Action 100+, that it collectively engages with its investees on the topic of climate change.

TIAA has a publicly available policy statement committing it to respect human rights. The pension fund has a grievance mechanism accessible to all workers, external individuals and communities to raise human rights complaints or concerns.

In terms of its approach to senior leadership accountability, TIAA has an opportunity to link the remuneration of its executive and management teams to sustainability performance criteria. While TIAA discloses some of its initiatives to promote women and gender equality, there is no evidence that the financial institution has a public commitment to gender equality and women’s empowerment. The pension fund has an opportunity to reach at least 40% female representation in senior leadership positions.

TIAA has an opportunity to discloses a target to reach net-zero financed emissions by 2050 across all its portfolio. It could also align its investments in green bonds with internationally recognised frameworks and set time-bound targets explicitly for its investments in climate solutions. In addition, there is an opportunity for TIAA to disclose its approach to fossil fuels that spans across the fossil fuel value chain and its assets under management, such as the amount or share of investment it directs towards fuels, or its stance on investing in companies with new fossil fuel projects. Despite its subsidiary, Nuveen having a deforestation policy for its investments in Brazil, no further evidence has been found of TIAA’s commitment to minimizing its negative impact on biodiversity across its portfolio.

TIAA has an opportunity to describe a comprehensive process for identifying its human rights risks and impacts across all its activities, especially its investment activities. There is no evidence that the pension fund discloses the proportion of its total direct operations workforce for each employee category by age group. To provide transparency on financial inclusivity, TIAA has an opportunity to disclose the amount of investment directed towards low-income developing countries.