Scottish Widows, part of the Lloyds Banking Group, is a leading pensions, investments and life insurance firm.
Our first phase of work with Scottish Widows included a Group-wide assessment of salient human rights risks, in which Sancroft prioritised salient issues within sectors and investee companies targeted for engagement. Building on this, Scottish Widows sought Sancroft’s expertise to better understand the human rights risks across its extensive portfolio, and assess relative severity of the risks spanning numerous sectors.
Sancroft began by identifying appropriate sector level groupings to build the research from. We then compiled sector-specific data sources, to map the human rights risks across the agreed sectors. Risks were mapped across three key rightsholder groups: workers, communities and end-users. Following our mapping of relevant human rights risks, and to enable cross-sector comparisons, we sought to determine the relative severity of the identified risks.
In conjunction with the sector risk mapping, and to determine which sectors posed the greatest risk to workers through their operations and supply chain, we rated and ranked human rights risks across different countries. This allowed us to determine the intersection of sector and country risk, to further support priority engagement activities.
In the final phase, we prepared a heatmap covering the human rights risks by sector, across the three rightsholder groups and incorporated a ranking of the highest risk countries associated with highest risk sectors. We also recommended next steps including how Scottish Widows should prioritise, engage and refine these risks, supported with their own analysis, to strengthen its overall approach to managing the human rights risks in its portfolio.
〉The severity analysis provided greater insight of their exposure to human rights risks across sectors and countries, alongside relative severity between sectors.
〉As a result of this work, the client has a better understanding of where and how they need to focus their stewardship and engagement activities across different markets.
〉Overall, this comprehensive assessment enabled Scottish Widows to proactively identify and manage risks, which will contribute to the resilience of the business.
