What is triage? Is this process triage?
In current usage, triage is any system of classifying possible actions by priority level. The term was first used in World War I, in battlefield situations where acute care could not be given to all. Older dictionaries, such as the 1972 edition of the American Heritage Dictionary, give the original explicit rule for this prioritization, defining triage as a system
"to produce the greatest benefit from limited treatment facilities for battlefield casualties by giving treatment to those who may survive with proper treatment and not to those who have no chance of surviving and those who will survive without it."
That is, if the medics found a soldier who would die no matter what they did, they would give minimal care at most. And if they found one who would clearly recover even without care, they would move on to someone else. But if they found a soldier whose survival depended on medical care, they would provide the best care they could.
The process described on this website follows the spirit of this original meaning, calling for shareholder engagement where the greatest benefit will result, while not expending limited advocacy resources on companies where shareholder engagement would be either fruitless or unneeded.
Of the seven investment firms examined in detail, most exclude companies that are not fossil-fuel free, but two do not. This discrepancy among investment firms comes from different assessments of which companies might possibly be improved by shareholder engagement.