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Social Factors

Together… we are building a more inclusive business and fairer society.

It starts with us…

In a world that’s changing quickly, it’s important we create the conditions that enable our business to have a real-world impact. That’s what we’re going to do. We will go further for our clients. We will be a better and more inclusive employer. We will play our part in building a world that is more sustainable, just, inclusive and diverse.

Investing with purpose

We want to raise awareness and drive positive change to support fair and inclusive work, equality of opportunity and connect with those isolated from society. We will direct finance towards companies that are having a positive social impact and protecting their workers, and encourage them to maintain the high standards we ask of ourselves. Social factors represent key themes aligned with our Sustainable investing process, along with:

Focus on

How Social factors impact our operations as a business as well as our investment decisions

Human rights

Our central ESG Investment function analyse global and thematic social risks and opportunities and working with asset class ESG experts, this research and insight is integrated into investment decision making. The social factors we consider are diverse and include labour and human rights issues such as diversity and inclusion, social welfare, modern slavery, indigenous rights and more.

Human Rights: Our approach for investments

We engage companies on human rights issues and use our expertise to support cross-industry anti-modern slavery collaborations. Organisations failing to uphold the human rights of their stakeholders risk negatively impacting communities, regulatory penalties, operating challenges, and reduced revenue and trust.

Video

Human Rights: Our approach for investments - video

‘A Woman’s Place’, is a research series from the abrdn Research Institute. Focusing on the often overlooked ‘S’ of ESG (Environmental, Social and Governance), the authors set out to find what drives differences in female participation in the workforce and highlight why D&I policy really matters for investors.
Diversity and Inclusion
At abrdn we know that making progress in diversity and inclusion is critical for the long term sustainability of companies and economic growth. We are committed to pushing forward progress in our operations and to promoting Diversity & Inclusion through our investment activities.
Read more about Bringing diversity and inclusion to life.

Human Rights

Our human rights policy summarises our approach to identifying and upholding the human rights of our people, clients and customers, community and those impacted by our suppliers, partners and the companies we invest in.

Our modern slavery statement outlines our approach to tackling human trafficking, forced labour, bonded labour and child slavery.

Read our modern slavery statement 
To make ethical investment processes and decisions we consider a range of social criteria such as the Environment and biodiversity, Communities and Human rights, Employment and labour, Business Ethics.

Ethical Funds: Our ethical equity and bond strategies seek to generate attractive returns and, in addition to a range of environmental and social criteria, exclude companies involved in significant human rights controversies.

Key Documents

Human rights
Controversial weapons
Businesses and human rights
Labour and employment
Diversity and inclusion

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