Zwitserleven Pensioen and information on sustainability
At Zwitserleven, sustainability has long been part of our overall strategy. We will be happy to tell you more about the level of sustainability of the Zwitserleven Pensioen.
Please note: the information on this page is only about the Zwitserleven Pensioen product. This information differs from the sustainability information for other Zwitserleven products because a different policy for responsible and sustainable investment currently applies to Zwitserleven Pensioen. Zwitserleven is aiming to align these different policies by 2024.
Investment policy
The European Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation (SFDR) requires Zwitserleven:
- to publish information on the integration of sustainability risks when making investment decisions; and
- to indicate whether or not adverse effects of investment decisions on sustainability factors are taken into account; and
- to disclose whether a financial product promotes environmental, social and governance (ESG) characteristics or has sustainable investing as its goal.
According to the SFDR, a 'sustainable investment' is:
- an investment in an economic activity that contributes to the achievement of an environmental objective, as measured, for example, by key resource efficiency indicators for the use of energy, renewable energy, raw materials, water and land, for waste generation, and greenhouse gas emissions, and for the impact on biodiversity and the circular economy; or
- an investment in an economic activity that contributes to the achievement of a social objective, in particular an investment that helps tackle inequality, or promotes social cohesion, social inclusion and industrial relations; or
- an investment in human capital or in economically or socially disadvantaged communities, provided that these investments do not seriously undermine those objectives and the investee companies follow good governance practices, in particular with regard to good management structures, relations with their employees, remuneration of the staff concerned and tax compliance.
'Sustainability risks' are defined as environmental, social or governance events or circumstances that, if they occur, could cause an actual or potential material adverse effect on the value of the investment.
'Sustainability factors' are environmental, social and employment matters, respect for human rights and combating corruption and bribery.
Sustainability risks
For Zwitserleven Pensioen, a formal process was applied in the assessment of fund managers for integration and sustainability risks. Sustainability risks can reduce the return on Zwitserleven Pensioen. The sustainable investing assessment of a fund manager's practices and implementation, in the context of individual strategies and products, is included in the overall assessment of a fund manager's ability to achieve competitive advantage.
Selection of fund managers
The process of constructing a portfolio for the Zwitserleven Pensioen aims to maximise the quality of the portfolio, assessed through a number of 'lenses', including sustainability. An important part of that framework is the assessment of sustainability through two dimensions:
- portfolio resilience. That is, the portfolio's exposure to sustainability risks; and
- manager integration. That is, the extent to which sustainability risks are integrated into portfolio managers' decisions.
In other words, when selecting the underlying fund manager, among other relevant considerations, an assessment was made as to what degree the fund manager takes sustainability risks into account.
For the Zwitserleven Pensioen, there is currently complete freedom in weighing all these considerations, such as sustainability risks, return, cost, risk, liquidity and diversification when allocating investments or rebalancing them in the portfolio.
Moreover, for the Zwitserleven Pensioen, sustainability risks have not been independently and bindingly integrated into investment decisions (at product level). The underlying investments of the financial products on offer do not take into account the EU criteria for environmentally sustainable economic activities.
For the Zwitserleven Pensioen, negative effects of investment decisions are not taken into account
For the Zwitserleven Pensioen, the adverse effects of investment decisions on sustainability factors at product level are not taken into account. Zwitserleven aims to do this from 1 January 2025 or as earlier as possible.
Zwitserleven is a brand and trading name of Zwitserleven PPI N.V. At the entity level, Zwitserleven PPI N.V. does take into account the adverse effects of investment decisions on sustainability factors. This information can be found at Sustainability Information for Zwitserleven PPI.
Employee portal
The content, graphs and visuals in the ESG dashboard in the employee portal are for illustrative purposes only and relate to only part of the investment portfolio. We thus create initial insight and awareness for participants in the Zwitserleven Pensioen. The ESG dashboard currently provides no information on the alignment of the financial products' investments with Regulation (EU) 2020/852 (Taxonomy Regulation); the underlying investments of the financial products offered do not take into account the EU criteria for environmentally sustainable economic activities.
For the Zwitserleven Pensioen, there is currently no obligation to only make investments that (a) promote environmental or social characteristics or (b) have sustainable investment as an objective, or (c) commit to good governance. The Zwitserleven Pensioen furthermore does not target such elements in a legally binding way.
Remuneration policy and the integration of sustainability risks
Zwitserleven is part of Athora Netherlands N.V. Athora Netherlands’ group remuneration policy also applies to Zwitserleven. Athora Netherlands also includes in its group remuneration policy an explanation on how this policy takes sustainability risks into account.
Stewardship
Zwitserleven expects the companies and governments in which it invests to actively work to operate within the ecological limits of our planet and the social foundations of society, now and in the near future.
As a shareholder, it is possible to encourage companies to become more sustainable. This can be done, for example, by voting at shareholder meetings. Another example is seeking out a dialogue as an engaged investor with a company with the aim of changing behaviour.
Companies that do not deal with sustainability well may not be open to dialogue and/or take sufficient steps to become more sustainable. In that case, a decision may be made to stop investing in these companies. We call this 'exclusion'.
Exclusions (negative selection)
For the Zwitserleven Pensioen product, investments that violate international standards and United Nations human rights (the UNPRI principles and UN Global Compact principles) are excluded. Investments are also excluded when required by law (e.g. due to sanctions legislation). We furthermore do not invest in companies whose turnover is largely derived from the production of controversial weapons, tobacco or thermal coal.
Dialogue and voting policy
Zwitserleven has currently outsourced the dialogue and voting policy for the Zwitserleven Pensioen product to BlackRock, Northern Trust, Cardano (formerly Actiam), LGIM, BNY Mellon and Triodos. A description and understanding of the policies and related implementation thereof of these asset managers can be found on their websites:
Reporting
Zwitserleven aims for transparency on the level of sustainability of its investments. We offer insight into this for Zwitserleven Pensioen in the form of quarterly reports.
Download the report here.