Stockholm (NordSIP) – French asset manager Amundi has adopted a three-year action plan that aims to integrate ESG analysis across all its funds and voting practices by 2021. The €1.4 trillion manager will require shareholder engagement and voting to systematically include ESG analysis and will establish an ESG advisory service for its institutional clients to support them in development initiatives.
In addition, Amundi will also double the number of initiatives promoting investment in projects with an environmental and social impact, and increase investments in the ‘social and solidarity’ (enterprises and organisations producing goods, services and knowledge meeting the environmental and solidarity needs of the community they serve) economy to €500 million (up €300 million).
“Since its creation, Amundi has chosen to make responsible investment one of the company’s founding pillars,” said Amundi CEO Yves Perrier in a press release. “This was based on two convictions: the responsibility companies and investors have to society, and that this is a guarantee of long-term financial performance. This three-year plan extends our commitment to responsible investment and anticipates the expectations of our clients.”
Amundi currently has €270 billion invested in applying ESG criteria to traditional financial analysis (e.g. issuing ESG ratings to issuers, giving them the incentive to improve their environmental and social impact by weighting stocks accordingly in its portfolios). It has an additional €10 billion’s worth of dedicated funds with targeted investments to tackle climate change and finance energy transition, and provides support for ‘social and solidarity’ economy companies through a dedicated €200 million fund. These practices account for 19% of Amundi’s total assets.
By the end of the new three-year plan, Amundi’s ESG policy will apply to 100% of its fund management and voting practices. Extra-financial analysis using ESG criteria will be extended to both active and passive fund management wherever possible, where actively managed funds will be required to offer ESG performance above the ESG rating of their benchmark universes, and other asset classes currently falling short of responsible investment will be required to fully incorporate Amundi’s ESG recommendations. The company expects this to increase open funds incorporating ESG available to retail investors to roughly €250 billion over the next three years.
ESG assets under passive management will double to at least €70 billion, while a new range of SRI ETFs has been launched. Amounts invested in initiatives related to the environment and social impact will be doubled by increasing thematic funds to €20 billion.
“Amundi has built a solid and recognized ESG analysis process and launched innovative initiatives to promote investments with powerful environmental and social impact. We now aim to make ESG criteria mainstream in investment processes and voting policies,” said Amundi Chief Responsible Investment Officer Stanislas Pottier.
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