We aim to invest each fund in line with our Sustainable (responsible) Investment (SI) policy. We are committed to act on climate change by aligning our assets under management to a 1.5°C temperature pathway and net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 or sooner. Our approach to SI focuses on four pillars: working towards investing more in companies and other issuers that provide or adopt solutions that are line with our goal of delivering positive outcomes (climate action, biodiversity and ecosystems, water stewardship and pollution prevention and control); integrating environmental, social and governance factors in investment decisions; employing active and targeted stewardship; and utilising investment exclusions.

As one of New Zealand’s largest asset managers, we acknowledge we have a duty, and a responsibility to drive positive outcomes for our investments, our environment, our communities, and our customers. Our approach to sustainable investment focuses on four pillars which are: positive outcomes, integration, stewardship, and exclusions.

We are committed to act on climate change by aligning our assets under management to a 1.5°C pathway (the 1.5°C pathway refers to supporting efforts to limit global warming to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels) and net-zero greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 2050 or sooner. We are also working towards investing more in companies and other issuers that provide or adopt solutions that are in line with our goal of delivering positive outcomes (climate action, biodiversity and ecosystems, water stewardship and pollution prevention and control).

We integrate environmental, social and governance factors into our investment decisions and expect the underlying investment managers, investing on our behalf, to do the same. We implement stewardship through exercising voting rights and engaging with companies via the underlying investment managers or our New Zealand fixed interest team, to communicate our sustainable investment expectations.

We maintain sustainable investment exclusion criteria to determine the companies and other issuers that we won’t invest in. For more information on how we manage these exclusions, refer to our SI policy. For our fossil fuel exclusions: 

We exclude companies that have their primary business activity in the oil and gas drilling, oil and gas equipment and services, integrated oil and gas, oil and gas exploration and production or in the coal and consumable fuels subindustries as defined by Global Industry Classification Standards. We also exclude: 

o   companies deriving more than 10% of their revenue from oil or gas exploration, production or refining; 

o   companies deriving more than 10% of their revenue from oil or gas exploration in Arctic regions; 

o   companies deriving more than 10% of their revenue from the extraction of oil sands; 

o   companies deriving more than 10% of their revenue from shale energy exploration and/or production; 

o   companies deriving more than 10% of their revenue from the extraction of thermal coal, and 

o   companies deriving more than 50% of their revenue from the generation of electricity from thermal coal. 

When we screen for companies in breach of international human rights, labour protection, environmental standards and predatory lending, in each case the criteria are as assessed by our third-party research provider(s). We exclude companies deriving any revenue from the manufacturing of controversial weapons or components or services of the core weapons systems. 

We also exclude companies deriving any revenue from the manufacturing of nuclear, biological or chemical weapons. We exclude companies deriving any revenue from their involvement in depleted uranium or white phosphorous mining, or deriving any revenue both manufacturing and selling assault weapons to civilian customers.

We also exclude companies involved in the manufacture of cluster munitions or anti-personnel mines. 

We also exclude companies deriving any revenue from the processing of whale meat. 

For more information on how we manage our exclusions please refer to our SI policy here.