The NZ Super Fund has scored well in a report looking at its approach to responsible investment across its NZD47 billion portfolio.

The United Nations Principles for Responsible Investment (UNPRI) is the internationally accepted benchmark for how institutional investors should manage environmental, social and governance issues.

Its latest Assessment and Transparency Report rated the NZ Super Fund:

• A+ for strategy and governance;
• A+ for listed equity, property and infrastructure and A for fixed income relating to the selection, appointment and monitoring of managers;
• A for internal active listed equities, and;
• A for active ownership.

“The UNPRI is the leading global proponent of responsible investment. We benchmark our practices against its principles to ensure we achieve our long-standing commitment to responsible investment,” says NZ Super Fund Head of Responsible Investment Anne-Maree O’Connor.”

“We believe environmental, social and governance factors are material to long term returns.

“This report gives us confidence we’re managing  the Fund in a manner that is consistent with our legislation, our goal of being engaged investors and our internal responsible investment policies.”

In the past year the NZ Super Fund has been active in the One Planet Sovereign Wealth Fund working group to accelerate efforts to incorporate climate change considerations into the investment decision-making process and ownership activities of sovereign wealth funds.

It has also played an active role on the UN Finance Commission on Modern Slavery in the finance sector, the Aotearoa Circle’s Sustainable Finance Forum and co-led the Social Media Collaborative Engagement to pressure technology companies to strengthen controls to prevent the live streaming and distribution of objectionable content following the 15 March 2019 Christchurch terrorist attack.

The NZ Super Fund was one of the founding 25 signatories to the UNPRI in 2006. Since then, the number of participants has grown to over 3,500.

The Fund has also been shortlisted for the International Corporate Governance Network 2020 Global Stewardship Disclosure Awards. The awards recognise investors who provide genuine insight into their stewardship policies and how they are implemented, and whose approach to disclosure provides a model that others might follow.

It was shortlisted under the Asset Owner (<£60 billion AUM) category, along with AP2 (Sweden), UniSuper (Australia) and the University of Toronto Asset Management (Canada), with the winner to be announced in November.

Click on the following links for more information on UNPRI and ICGN.

The 2020 NZ Super Fund UNPRI Transparency and Assessment Reports (and links to previous reports) are available here.

More information on NZ Super Fund’s Responsible Investing activities is available here.