Active Responsible funds – sustainable from the ground up

With our investment stewardship, we aim to promote sustainable business practices and compliance with recognised international principles and ESG best-practice standards. We are in constant dialogue with corporate management. We do this through the United Nations' Collaboration Platform for Responsible Investment (UN PRIs) and through investor initiatives. We exercise our voting rights on the basis of Swiss and international corporate governance regulations as well as the principles of the UN Global Compact and the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDGs).

We apply exclusion criteria based on the Swiss Association for Responsible Investments (SVVK-ASIR). These criteria exclude companies that do not comply with international conventions and Swiss laws. This involves business areas such as the development, production, warehousing and distribution of cluster munitions, anti-personnel land mines and nuclear weapons. In the case of the Responsible funds, we supplement the exclusion criteria based on SVVK-ASIR with additional criteria and thereby exclude other companies with ESG-critical business models.

ESG criteria (E: environmental, S: social, G: governance) are an integral part of our active investment process for traditional investments. The systematic integration of ESG criteria in the financial analysis allows us to identify risks and opportunities at an early stage and creates added value for you as well as a solid basis for good investment decisions.

Our active Responsible funds with traditional investments are based on the Paris Agreement as standard. As a pioneer in Switzerland, we focus our investment activities on the 2-degree target in accordance with the Paris Agreement by reducing the CO₂e intensity of investments in the respective investment funds by at least four percent annually. We reduce the number of CO₂e-intensive companies and countries that have no strategies for cutting CO₂e emissions in favour of companies and countries that are efficient in terms of their carbon footprint as well as those that pursue ambitious targets for reducing CO₂e. In our engagement activities, we also encourage companies to formulate and implement effective CO₂e reduction targets.

You have access to detailed reporting on your investment funds in the traditional asset classes – including sustainability indicators such as ESG ratings, CO₂e intensity and excluded companies.