Sustainability Inspires: How we use voting to make business better
We discuss how voting helps drive positive change and improve the performance of our clients' investments on our latest podcast episode.
How we incorporate Environmental, Social and Governance factors into our approach to Sustainable Investing.
We face interlinked environmental crises, from climate breakdown, extreme weather, and species loss to water scarcity and unsustainable food production. We take action in our operations, but our greatest impact and influence is through how we invest our customers’ and clients’ money. We are proud to be a signatory of the Net Zero Asset Managers initiative, with a dedicated focus on financing the transition to a low-carbon economy. The adaptation to climate change impacts our products and investment decisions. Discover how we are working to help tackle climate change.
We are facing many global issues, from inequality and poverty to an ageing population. 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.
As a responsible global investor, we leverage our scale and market position to raise standards in both the companies and industries in which we invest, and help drive best practice across the asset management industry.
We are active equity investors. We believe that deep fundamental research, a disciplined investment process and full analysis of environmental, social and governance (ESG) issues is the most effective way to deliver long-term returns for our clients.
Consideration of ESG factors is embedded in our fixed income research process. It’s one of the key dimensions, alongside other valuation metrics, on which we assess any company in which we invest. We actively engage with our investee companies, combining information from these meetings with insights from our investment managers, research analysts and central ESG investment team.
Our Multi-Asset Investment Solutions (MAIS) team manages a wide range of strategies and follows diverse investment approaches. Our ability to integrate ESG varies across our diverse portfolio management approaches. For example, where we use abrdn’s active equity and credit strategies, ESG is backed by an extensive Stewardship process and ESG integration is extensive, but where we allocate using derivatives or passive index trackers, the opportunity to integrate ESG can be limited.