APG.nl Careers Asset management
English

Select your language

English Dutch

Overview

Responsible Investing

Focus Themes
Responsible Investing

Active Ownership
Responsible Investing

Policies, Statements & Reports

We want to deliver a good pension to our clients' participants. At the same time, we aim to contribute to a sustainable future in which those pensions can be enjoyed. This is why we asses whether the investments we make are managed responsibly and any risk and opportunities linked to social and environmental issues. 

 

 

Responsible Investment (RI) and why it is important to APG


At APG Asset Management, we integrate environmental, social, and governance (ESG) criteria into all our investment decisions. This means that for every single investment, regardless of the asset class, our investment experts assess environmental, social, and governance aspects alongside  risk, return and cost./ This enables us to make better long-term investment decisions. 
 
We believe that integrating sustainability and governance aspects into the way we invest, on behalf of our clients, contributes to the integrity of financial markets, and helps secure a good income upon retirement for our pension fund clients’ beneficiaries.


Stewardship


Stewardship is part of how we exercise our clients’ fiduciary responsibility. We use our voice and influence to promote responsible practices and make our clients’ expectations known to our investees, policymakers, regulators and the general public. We do this through activities such as portfolio construction and monitoring, engagement, proxy voting, reporting and collaborative investor action. As stewards of our client’s capital, we continously evolve our practices in order to safeguard and enhance its long term value.
  • RI integration in investment decisions 

    For our listed equity and credit investments, the investment process begins with us using a proprietary method to assess companies and define an investment universe based on our clients’ investment criteria. We invest only in companies that are attractive from a risk, return, and cost perspective and meet these criteria. We proactively stay on top of new developments in research, data and regulations and refine the criteria accordingly.

  •  

    To ensure a consistent approach of integrating RI across all asset classes, our investment teams operate under a clear set of RI guidelines that have a common starting point and are  then tailored to their specific sector and/or asset class.



  • RI governance 

    APG Asset Management’s management board is accountable for the achievement of our and our clients’ RI ambitions and objectives. In addition, we have established a clear governance structure in our organization that oversees different aspects:

    •    RI performance: This is monitored at the total portfolio level by the Investment Committee which is chaired by our CEO. 

    •    RI integration: The Chief Investment Officers are responsible for ensuring RI objectives are properly embedded in portfolio management. They also ensure each asset class and investment team meets our clients’ objectives.

    •    ESG risk monitoring: The Risk Department performs second-line responsibilities, which include monitoring climate and nature risks across the portfolio.

  • RI disclosures

    We report on our approach under the Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation 
    (SFDR). Our thematic disclosures, such as the annual Stewardship Overview and the Climate Transition Plan, provide further insight into how we deliver on our clients’ objectives.
  • Engagement, voting and RI instruments

    On behalf of our clients, we engage with investees on issues including climate change, biodiversity, human rights and corporate governance. Our engagement starts with communicating our clients’ broader expectations and gradually focuses on company specific change on sustainability and governance performance and reporting.

    We vote at company shareholder meetings as a way to exercise our rights as shareholders and reinforce our engagement asks. We sometimes use voting as an escalation tool when companies we have engaged do not show sufficient progress. Both engagement and voting are supported by a set of in-house RI instruments that make company monitoring easy and efficient. For more information on engagement, voting and RI Instruments please see our Active Ownership page.

Memberships, commitments & partnerships

 

At APG Asset Management, we are committed to developing and supporting standards that will advance RI and are convinced that global collaboration between institutional investors can play a significant role in tackling the challenges we face today.

 

We are active members of various networks, have made commitments under several thematic initiatives and have co-founded strategic partnerships in the areas of data, research and standard development.

 

Examples of the other initiatives we are involved in:

 

More initiatives we are involved in

For more insights, explore our articles here.