We have a number of commitments and targets with respect to sustainability. The biggest impact a.s.r. currently has is through its investments. With these investments, we indirectly impact people, society and the environment. You can read more about our sustainability policy. If you wish to know more about our investments, take a look at our page on investing.
Sustainable investment
Countries and companies that do not meet our criteria are excluded from our investment portfolio. Our focus is on investing in countries and companies that contribute to a sustainable society. How do we do this? Based on positive selection criteria (Dutch PDF), we rank companies and countries that are leading in terms of sustainability by promoting the energy transition and combating the risks of climate change, or focusing on themes we believe to be important, such as healthcare and education.
So what do we do, for example?
We do not invest in the arms, tobacco and gambling industries. Or in companies that derive much of their revenue from nuclear power, oil shale and coal. We also demand that companies comply with international conventions on human rights, employment rights and the environment. We have criteria for gender equality, a living wage, trade union freedom and exclusion of child labour. For investments in sovereign bonds, we look at issues such as the degree of democratic freedom and corruption. And we engage with the companies and the governments of countries we invest in. In this way, we believe we can create more value, both financially and socially.
Sustainable Finance Action Plan
The financial sector has an important role to play in achieving a greener and more sustainable economy. An action plan has been drawn up at European level: the Sustainable Finance Action Plan. This plan aims to encourage the financial sector to invest more in activities that focus on the longer term and on sustainability.
One of the European regulations resulting from the action plan is the Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation (SFDR). The objective of the SFDR is to improve the disclosure of sustainable investments within the financial sector. We like to provide insight into how we invest and why. In addition to our Socially Responsible Investment policy, we also provide more information on sustainability through a Principal Adverse Impacts Statement (PAI Statement). When investing, there is the possibility of potentially negative impacts. These are also known as the adverse effects (of investments). How we deal with adverse impacts is described in the PAI Statement (PDF). In addition, we publish quarterly reports describing the actions we are taking in the area of sustainability. You can find those posts on the Sustainable Investor page (in Dutch), as well as our voting policy and our codes of conduct. You can also view .
Pre-contractual information
Within the investments of defined contribution schemes, we are also concerned with various sustainability aspects, such as social and environmental characteristics. In the documents below you can read, among other things, how we deal with sustainability risks. And how these risks are factored into how we make decisions. The composition of the investments evolves with the employee's age, which we also call the 'life cycle'. We therefore provide the information for two different age groups:
This information can also be found in layer 3 of the Pension 1-2-3.
Sustainability information
We also assess, measure and monitor sustainability. In the documents below, we describe the methods, data sources and selection criteria we use: