The Taiwan Depository & Clearing Corporation (TDCC) started providing Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) services to investors in 2018. Since that time, TDCC has introduced information from multiple international ESG rating agencies around the world to the Taiwanese market and has also organized annual large-scale forums where speakers, such as internationally-recognized vendors, scholars, and experts share their latest ESG market insights. Due to the pandemic, the 2021 Taiwan ESG & Sustainable Investment Forum will go virtual this year. For four years in a row now, TDCC has invited many vendors, scholars, and experts to talk about the current ESG investment landscape. The events have not only been widely recognized by our governing bodies, but have also received many accolades from their peers in the Taiwanese market.

As Chu Han-Chiang, the TDCC President, pointed out, the morning session of the Taiwan ESG & Sustainable Investment Forum on January 27th will center on the topic “Responsible Investment Strategies and Practices”, which will give market participants a better picture of the ESG investment ecosystem. At this year’s forum, our key speakers are from industry leaders, such as the Head of Global Responsible Investment at Fidelity International, one of the largest funding companies in the world, and the Chief Analyst of Greater China at Sustainalytics, the leading provider of ESG research in Europe, will all share their observations on the latest forms of responsible investment strategies as well as the ESG rating outlook for Taiwanese enterprises. As for domestic ESG investment practices, institutional investors from Cathay Life Insurance, Taishin Securities Investment Advisory, and Taiwan Life Insurance will also share their success stories and their predictions regarding future trends from their point of view as key market players.

In the afternoon session, the topic will be “Voting at Shareholder Meetings and ESG Management Visions”. Speakers will thoroughly explore and discuss the many issues investors may face during shareholder meetings. As the highest-ranking management team in a company, members of the board are the primary policymakers. Additionally, with foreign shares in the domestic securities market exceeding 40%, securing support for motions in shareholder meetings has become an ever more important task for issuing companies. To help companies get an earlier grasp on international institutional investors’ voting intentions, TDCC invited ISS and Glass Lewis, two leading providers of voting advisory services, to give an in-depth analyses of relevant policies as well as the outlook for Taiwanese shareholder meetings in 2021. Other established representatives will also demonstrate how to develop a more advanced ESG management mechanism, such as that of FTSE Russell, a well-known global benchmark provider, as well as other outstanding issuing companies like AU Optronics and Taiwan Mobile.

President Chu also stated that the TDCC will endeavor to develop more ESG services so that issuing companies and domestic institutional investors can search, analyze, and track the ESG performance of the companies they have invested in. It is hoped that these services will lay a firm foundation for the domestic ESG investment ecosystem to build on and become a brand-new shining light for the Taiwanese capital market. Mr. Chu added that starting this year, under the principles of the Corporate Governance 3.0 - Sustainable Development Roadmap announced by the competent authority, the TDCC will continue to take further strides to help facilitate communication between Taiwanese issuers and international voting advisories. Finally, on the Investor Relations Platform website, the voting policies and contact information of the two leading global voting advisory providers have been revealed and given to the issuing companies, also TDCC will continue to make the vendor’s voting recommendations accessible to clients that may need them. For more information, please visit: https://irplatform.tdcc.com.tw