Responsible Investing

Exclusions

We do not invest in companies involved with controversial weapons, tobacco, large-scale coal-mining or coal-fired electricity generation, or which are in serious breach of the Principles of the United Nations Global Compact

Controversial Weapons:

We do not invest in any companies which are involved with the production or sale of anti-personnel mines and cluster bombs, or of chemical, biological and depleted uranium weapons.

Global Compact:

We exclude any company which violates, repeatedly and seriously, one or more of the ten principles of the Global Compact.

Tobacco:

We do not invest in companies which obtain more than 5% of their revenues from manufacturing complete tobacco products

Unconventional Oil and Gas:

We exclude investments in companies which obtain more than 30% of their revenues from the exploration and production of unconventional oil & gas extraction, i.e.  Shale Oil, Shale Gas and Oil Sands.

Nuclear Weapons:

We exclude:

  • companies involved in the production, sale, storage of nuclear weapons of states which are not Party to the Treaty on Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons and of states signatories of the Treaty on Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons but not members of NATO.
  • companies which produce nuclear warheads and/or whole nuclear missiles as well as components that were developed and/or significantly modified for exclusive use in nuclear weapons;
  • companies that obtain 5% or more of their total revenue from the production or sale of nuclear weapons, excluding revenues from ownership and dual use components as well as delivery platforms.

Coal:

We exclude companies which receive a substantial proportion of their revenues from coal mining or coal-fired power generation or which are developing new coal mines, coal-fired power generation, or transport facilities exclusively dedicated to coal.

Detail:

  • We exclude companies with revenue from thermal coal mining extraction and thermal coal fired power generation which is >50% of their revenues.
  • We exclude companies with more than 20% of revenue from coal mining extraction, and companies with annual thermal coal extraction of 70m tonnes without an intention to reduce production.
  • We also exclude companies with revenues of between 20% and 50% from coal-fired electricity generation, if they have a poor transition path.
  • We exclude coal developers. These are companies which are adding to coal capacity, either via developing a coal mine (with more than 20% ownership) or building a coal-fired electricity generation facility of more than 300MW, or by building transport facilities exclusively dedicated to coal.  A company is not excluded if it is considering coal development – it is only excluded after a decision is made.  A company which buys an existing coal facility is not excluded – it is not adding to coal capacity, just changing the ownership of the existing capacity.  A company which buys coal assets in order to close them down will not be excluded provided it commits to closing them within two years.