Investing Responsibly
How we invest responsibly.
Our approach focuses on the following four areas:
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Engagement
Taking money out of or excluding companies that don't meet certain criteria around environmental, social and governance (ESG) issues may seem simple. However, this would mean we're unable to take positive action to influence change. We believe in engaging with these companies to support them to improve their corporate behaviour and encourage positive change.
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ESG integration
We expect all the fund managers who manage your investments to consider environmental, social and governance factors - both risks and opportunities - in their investment decision-making process.
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Voting
We use our voting rights on a range of issues. This includes voting on matters such as how companies are run (often referred to as governance), their impact on climate change, board appointments, changes to a company’s structure, pay and compensation, and mergers and acquisitions.
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Collaboration
We collaborate with policymakers, the companies we invest in, industry groups and other stakeholders on key issues such as climate change to support meaningful regulatory and industry change.
How we put our approach into practice
We work closely with the fund managers managing your investments, including Royal London Asset Management and BlackRock, where possible to embed our responsible investment principles. As a minimum, we ask all our fund managers of our actively managed funds to consider ESG factors in their investment decision-making.
To help you align your investments with your own sustainability philosophy, we also make available fund options where ESG and sustainability factors plays a more central role in the investment approach and/or investment objectives. These funds are classified as "Article 8 (Light Green)" or "Article 9 (Dark Green)" funds under the Sustainable Financial Disclosure Regulation and more detail of how these funds are invested and meet this regulation can be found below:
Remember that the value of all investments can go down as well as up, and you may get back less than you paid in.
Think about getting financial advice
Investing can be a complex area. If you're unsure where to invest, you should think about getting financial advice. Using a professional financial adviser can be reassuring when making important decisions about your money. Our products help you build your financial resilience and are only available from authorised Financial Brokers, who offer financial advice to help you meet your needs.
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Climate change as a key issue
In June 2021, Royal London Group announced our commitment to achieve net zero across our investment portfolio by 2050 and to halve emissions from it by 2030. Our targets are based on the expectation that governments and policymakers will deliver on the commitments to achieve the goals of the Paris Agreement and that the actions we need to take don't go against our duty to act in the best interests of our customers - known as our fiduciary duty.