In 2022, the Council on Ethics participated in reactive dialogues with 86 listed foreign companies. A company dialogue is about how the company handles difficult challenges in its operations such as corruption, human rights, working conditions, health and safety, environmental pollution and biodiversity. Through dialogue, the Council on Ethics can contribute to preventing problems, violations and accidents in various companies and industries.
The Council’s screening during 2022 of the AP Funds’ holdings, identified 28 confirmed violations and 83 cases with a risk of violation. These 111 incidents were represented by 86 companies with whom dialogue was conducted during the year.
| Screening | 2022 | 2021 | 2020 | 2019 |
| Number of screened companies in AP Funds’ portfolios | 3 202 | 3 168 | 2 430 | 3 557 |
| – of which, confirmed violations | 28 | 23 | 22 | 29 |
| – of which with risk of violation | 83 | 89 | 72 | 91 |
| – of which, no comment from screening | 3 091 | 3 056 | 2 336 | 3 437 |
| Dialogues | |
| Number of companies in active dialogue | 2022 |
| Number of companies in active dialogue, beginning of year | 81* |
| Number of companies where new dialogues have started | 16 |
| Number of companies with dialogue resolved and objectives achieved | -5 |
| Number of companies with dialogue resolved and objective not achieved (recommendation for exclusion) | 0 |
| Number of companies with dialogue resolved due to changes in AP funds’ holdings | -6 |
| Number of companies in active dialogue, December 2022 | 86 |
*The number of companies in active dialogue at the beginning of the year was 81. 85 companies were in active dialogue in October 2021, as reported in the 2021 report. Four of these dialogues were resolved with objectives achieved by December 2021.
During the year, a total of 66 new dialogue stages were achieved in the dialogues conducted (77 stages in 2021), of which 62 stages were achieved in dialogues that were active at year-end and 4 stages in dialogues that were resolved in 2022.
In 2022, the definitions of stages achieved were further refined. As a result, the number of stages is not fully comparable year-on-year. Under the new definitions, more is required for a company to achieve the first stages of the dialogue. The Council may also be engaged in more than one dialogue with the same company. In such cases, the statistics include all stages achieved in all dialogues conducted with the companies concerned.
The Council did not recommend the exclusion of any company in 2022 and re-included one company as it no longer violates any convention.