Our approach

By integrating a consideration of relevant ESG factors into our investment decisions, we can identify and assess areas of risk or opportunity, offering a relative advantage. Our ESG scoring and integration approach is applied across a wide range of investment strategies, and a firm-wide ‘sustainable education’ programme supports portfolio managers, analysts and other employees in evolving their knowledge.

We use stewardship – proxy voting, company engagement and public policy advocacy – to encourage companies and policy makers to improve their performance on sustainability topics. Promoting good ESG standards is an essential part of our ownership responsibilities.

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We expect companies to meet their fundamental obligations in human and labour rights, protecting the environment and ensuring anti-corruption safeguards wherever they operate, in line with the UN Global Compact Principles. We engage with companies regarding areas in which they fall short, and exclude the worst offenders. We also have a series of sector policies that set out the conditions for investing in particular sectors and guide our screening requirements and engagement.

We believe a better world is one with an economic model that includes a successful energy transition, is more environmentally sustainable, and more equitable and inclusive – our “3Es“, critical preconditions that are the focus of our sustainability efforts. We also believe that institutional investors – including both asset managers and asset owners – have the opportunity, indeed the obligation, to take action to help achieve the Sustainable Development Goals and the Paris Agreement.

Our goal is to integrate sustainability across our investment strategies, according to the four core pillars of our sustainability approach.

For investors wishing to go further, we also offer a range of:

• promoting environmental and/or social characteristics (for example having ESG scoring better than investment universe)
• receiving one or several labels (delivered by independent organisations, such as “Label ISR (SRI – Socially Responsible Investment)” in France)
• having a sustainable investment objective (for example sustainable thematic strategies)

Walking the talk is critical to achieving excellence. As a sustainable asset manager, our corporate practices and disclosures should match or exceed the standards we expect from the entities in which we invest. To achieve this, we have a four-pronged approach to integrating sustainability into our operations and as an employer: decreasing our operational CO2 emissions and reducing our waste to landfill, achieving a more gender-balanced workforce, and focusing our community initiatives on youth inclusion.