How the integration of stewardship into our investment approach has differed across funds, asset classes and geographies

Our investment strategies operate with a high degree of autonomy and are managed in line with the mandates agreed with clients or the fund offering documents. For our strategies that have made sustainability commitments and/or are not zero aligning, we may place greater weight on environmental and/or social factors when undertaking stewardship activities.

Stewardship is important across the range of asset classes we invest in on behalf of our clients. Our consideration of ESG factors, when these are material to the investment case, remains bottom-up and specific to the entity we are evaluating. Baillie Gifford's stewardship principles provide a guiding framework for considering each asset class in the context of its unique characteristics.

• Our stewardship opportunities depend on the investor rights associated with the asset class under consideration. In each case, we seek to use the ownership tools we believe will best support our clients' long-term interests. • When investing in government debt, we see benefits in collaboratively engaging to reach desired stewardship outcomes. An example of such an engagement is our sovereign engagement with Indonesia, more information on which can be found on page 45.
• Given that our corporate debt holdings do not allow us to vote, our stewardship activities are focused on pre-buy analysis supported by ongoing engagement where required.
• In relation to our Multi Asset products, stewardship is adapted depending on the asset class we hold, with a focus on engagement, voting and pre-buy analysis as appropriate.
• When investing in government debt, we see benefits in collaboratively engaging to reach desired stewardship outcomes. An example of such an engagement is our sovereign engagement with Indonesia, more information on which can be found on page 45.
• In relation to our Multi Asset products, stewardship is adapted depending on the asset class we hold, with a focus on engagement, voting and pre-buy analysis as appropriate.
• Our private company assets are often at an earlier stage of development and, therefore, may require a tailored approach to stewardship. We discuss this further on page 47.
• Our bottom-up fundamental approach to investment research seeks to recognise specific cultural norms and contexts. This extends to our stewardship approach. While our Stewardship Principles and Guidelines provide a baseline for this, the issues we focus on through our stewardship activities seek to recognise geographic variation.