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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 also look at how our investees treat people and the environment and whether the investments we make are managed responsibly. 

 

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 ESG criteria. These criteria are just as important to us as return, cost, and risk and enable us to make better long-term investment decisions. 
 
We believe responsible investments contribute to the integrity of financial markets, and help secure a good income upon retirement for our pension fund clients’ beneficiaries.


Stewardship


Stewardship is how we bring our clients’ fiduciary responsibility to life. We use our voice and influence to promote responsible investments 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 responsibly safeguard and enhance its long term value.
  • ESG integration in investment decisions 

    ESG integration into 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 ESG across all asset classes, our investment teams operate under a clear set of RI guidelines that are structured along these criteria and then customized for their specific sector and/or asset class.

  • ESG governance 

    APG Asset Management’s management board is accountable for the achievement of our clients’ RI ambitions and objectives. In addition, we have established a clear governance structure in our organization that oversees different aspects:
    •    ESG performance: This is monitored at the total portfolio level by the Investment Committee which is chaired by our CEO. 

    •    ESG change: In line with our ambition to constantly evolve and grow as RI leaders, the Responsible Investment Board oversees all change-related initiatives and is comprised of members of the management team. 

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

    •    ESG implementation: All our employees are required to implement our active ownership strategy. Because of this, ESG performance is integrated into remuneration for our investment teams. We also have dedicated RI specialists sitting within investment teams, fiduciary management, and risk management departments.

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

    We report on our stewardship under relevant regulatory and voluntary disclosure frameworks, including the Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation 
    (SFDR) and the Principles for Responsible Investment (PRI). Our thematic disclosures, such as the annual Stewardship Overview and the Climate Transition Plan, provide further insight into the progress we make against our clients’ RI objectives.

    Moreover, our RI specialists and portfolio managers work closely with our RI communications team to deliver accurate and timely information to the public via articles, interviews and web updates.
  • 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 ESG 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 multiple investor networks, have made commitments under several thematic initiatives and have co-founded strategic partnerships in the areas of ESG data, research and standard development.

 

Examples of the other initiatives we are involved in:

 

More initiatives we are involved in

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