Overarching approach

The Sustainability Risk Framework enables us to identify and analyse potential ESG risks within an investment, and is aligned with our overall governance structure.

The framework consists of two umbrella policies on human rights and environmental protection, and seven guidelines on sensitive sectors or issues: the defence industry; oil and gas (including oil sands); mining; dams; animal testing; forestry, pulp & paper and oil palm; and nuclear weapons proliferation. Each of these policies and guidelines contain a number of predefined criteria and qualitative standards that may lead to the exclusion of a company or a country from our investment scope. Following our recent review, we extended our exclusion list to include companies potentially posing a significant reputational risk to investors due to controversial business activities from an ESG perspective.

Our Asset Management unit applies these criteria to our investment assets, and excludes companies and countries if they do not meet the pre-defined criteria and qualitative standards.