Eighty-five per cent of Varma’s investment management companies have committed to the United Nations Principles for Responsible Investment (UN PRI).

The Finnish earnings-related pension provider has investigated the responsibility of its management companies with a survey, which also found that half of its management companies have linked ESG goals to management compensation.

Varma posed 68 questions to the management companies, which included, for example, how they consider human rights issues in their investments, whether they have an ESG policy covering the entire organisation, and whether the fund companies are involved in international joint investor initiatives aimed at reducing emissions, such as the SBT initiative that promotes science-based emission reductions.

The survey covered all types of Varma's assets. The value of the investment assets in these investments amounts to €31.9bn, or 56.8 percent of Varma's entire investment portfolio.

“As a large investor, we must also be able to communicate the responsibility of our investments that we do not manage ourselves. With this survey, we want to increase transparency in our fund investments. At the same time, the report serves as a tool for us in realizing our responsibility goals, as we get to monitor whether management companies are developing their responsibility in accordance with what was reported to us,” Varma director responsible for responsibility and communication, Hanna Kaskela, said.

Furthermore, it was noteworthy that the management companies largely reflected Varma's own principles of responsible investment. A total of 97 per cent of respondents stated that the principles are either partially or completely in line with Varma.

“This is how it should be, because the management company's responsibility is always evaluated when making an investment decision. Our current survey does not describe the operation of fund companies in general, but the operation of the funds in our investment portfolio. They basically reflect our own responsibility practices. We will hardly ever get to 100 per cent, because the principles of responsible investing live in time and fund companies react to changes at their own pace,” Kaskela added.

A total of 96 per cent of the companies that received the survey answered it.

Share Story: