SRI roadshows have a number of significant advantages over reports, questionnaires and AGM resolutions. These soon outweigh the marginal resource required to set them up.
- Direct: Roadshows and direct meetings enable companies to communicate directly with the owners and potential buyers of their stock – rather than relying on third party dissemination.
- High-quality and focussed: Face-to-face meetings enable companies to:
- present their sustainability performance in their own terms (rather than against a framework set by others)
- focus directly on the specific interests of the individual analysts
- set it within the context of their business environment
- address questions as they arise
- correct any misconceptions directly and ensure that their position is accurately understood
- Control: Roadshows enable companies to take more control of the SRI communications timetable and concentrate all of their SRI interaction into one point in the year
- Feedback: meetings with investors are the most efficient way for companies to:
- gain accurate information about the interests and priorities of their investors;
- separate genuine interest from the spurious;
- gather feedback from their investors on how their sustainability programmes should be shaped for the future
- ensure that they respond effectively to the specific interests of specific investors – rather that to the general public representation of “what investors want”.
- Mainstream: the process models what happens between companies and ‘mainstream’ investors.. Using the same communications process is one an essential step towards interesting ‘mainstream’ investors in sustainability issues and information
