Hello Community.
I saw this interesting article on ESG news today and thought it is timely. Remember, we have our monthly networking meetup on Thursday this week, 1 - 1:50 pm, with the theme of "Sustainability from the asset owner's perspective". If you haven't booked your free place to join that, you can do it here. The bookings will be by closed tomorrow. I hope to see you there!
Dutch pension fund ABP sets target for USD 32.5 billion in "impact" investments by 2030. Isn't that a strong signal to the market?
ABP plans to achieve double returns (financial and societal impacts) in areas like climate and biodiversity solutions.
The fund plans to allocate Euro 10 billion of these impact investments within the Netherlands, focusing on affordable housing, sustainable energy, and innovation. Other critical themes for ABP include respecting human rights and good governance. ABP sets goals and tightens criteria on these themes in the investment portfolio.
How does ABP do selection for their equity portfolio?
According to this article, ABP will create a "basket" of companies that meet its minimum standards. Companies where climate or biodiversity damage is inherently linked to their business activities, with no realistic prospect of improvement, do not fit within ABP's equity portfolio. The fund expects companies with a significant impact on climate to present concrete plans for reducing emissions in the coming years.
The fund is implementing criteria gradually starting with the equity portfolio in developed markets at Euro 102 billion, and will later extend it to other parts of the portfolio. Finally, ABP seeks a blanace between lower and higher risks in its investment mix for a secure pension and the preservation of pension fund value.
What is the selection process and how those selections are being made in your organsiation?
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Aya Pariy
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