Responsible funds: our sustainability standard
Responsible is our standard. Our active funds with traditional assets pursue a reduction path in line with the Paris climate target, as standard, and only invest in companies and states that do not violate any exclusion criterion and whose ESG performance we have analysed.
How you benefit from the Responsible standard
- 1 You are at the forefront on the journey towards more sustainability.
- 2 You align yourself with the 2-degree target of the Paris Agreement as standard.
- 3 Through our engagement and voting activities, you uphold your corporate social responsibility.
Our investment process for the Responsible standard
As the first step, we exclude companies and states that violate our exclusion criteria. With our proprietary ESG score, we analyse opportunities and risks, and we ensure with our portfolio construction that we achieve the CO2e reduction target of four percent per year. We also actively exercise voting rights and engage in forward-looking dialogue with the companies in which we invest (investment stewardship).
Principles for our Responsible standards
We are involved in the UN's collaboration platform for responsible investment (UN PRI) and in investor initiatives. We exercise our voting rights based on Swiss and international corporate governance rules and the United Nations Principles for Responsible Investment, the principles of the UN Global Compact and the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDGs).
We have defined framework conditions for environmentally and socially responsible investments. In addition to the exclusion criteria based on SVVK-ASIR, further exclusions apply to the Responsible funds. The aim is to avoid investments in states and companies with controversial business practices.
We consider our proprietary ESG score (E for Environment, S for Social and G for Governance) in the financial analysis. This way, we recognise sustainability and investment risks early in our multi-stage investment process, minimise them and make informed investment decisions.
As a pioneer among Swiss asset managers, we align our investment activities with the 2-degree target of the Paris Agreement and work towards a CO2e reduction target of at least four percent per year. We reduce investments in CO2e-intensive companies and states without a strategy for reducing their CO2e emissions in favour of CO2e-efficient companies and states with ambitious targets. With our engagement, we encourage companies to set ambitious climate targets.
