Stewardship platform vendor Esgaia has introduced its Vote Disclosure Service (VDS) to improve the transparency of investors’ vote reporting, aiming to offer a “cost-effective and dynamic alternative” to leading proxy voting firms. VDS is designed to help users meet compliance and best practice disclosure standards more efficiently, enabling asset managers and institutional investors to automate the disclosure of key voting data directly on their websites. Esgaia said current disclosure practices are falling behind expectations at a time of increasing regulatory and stakeholder requirements on voting transparency, including the provision of access to data in timely and digestible formats. Existing processes are often fragmented and manual, it added, with investors disclosing vote summaries in annual stewardship reports, holding individual records in separate detailed lists, and disclosing votes on websites or using the disclosure services of proxy voting providers. Esgaia said VDS would allow investors to reduce administrative tasks by streamlining the structuring, preparation and reporting of voting data, thus fulfilling regulatory requirements and enhancing best practice disclosure. Use of the service would help to build trust by strengthening accountability with clients and beneficiaries, it said. Other key features of VDS include quick implementation, the ability to display data on multiple websites, filters on voting data, availability of custom data on ESG topics, and detailed meeting information.
