ASR Nederland N.V. wants, as insurer, investor and employer, to play a leading role in the Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) for the financial sector."
Our mission
Our mission is to provide people with security in uncertain situations. We do that by providing people financial continuity and enabling them to take well-considered risks in achieving their ambitions. In that, insurance is essential and insuring our reason for existence. For a.s.r., valuable service starts by understanding what people value. We believe that customers are able to insure themselves in ways best fitting their situation, preferences and possibilities. a.s.r. stands for helping customers. a.s.r. wants to be a useful insurer, that is a welcome part of the community. Intelligibility and simplicity combined with efficient operations and a solid financial position are essential. Customers should be convinced that their risks are covered by an insurer with austere operations and that avoids wastage. That listens to them, thinks along with them, and can be reached via several forms of communication.
Our vision
a.s.r. is going back to basics and redefining insuring. Our predecessors put insurance in the Netherlands as a service on the map. That history goes back to 1720, with as a foundation sharing risks. That is exactly how it should be today. Taking society and the environment into account is front and center in our vision. The a.s.r. core values, personal, approachable and accountable and true to who we are, play a crucial role.
We are convinced that our existence is justified by keeping customer interests and customer experiences in mind. Our products should fit this mindset.
Our Socially Responsible Investments Policy
ASR Nederland's responsible investment policy focuses on positive selection for best practices and best products based on ESG-criteria. This means that ASR Nederland favours companies that perform well within their sector or contribute towards sustainable development (eg. waste processing, recycling and clean energy). ASR also maintains an exclusion list based on multiple criteria and practices engagement/ SRI dialogue with a number of companies in which it has investment positions.
Since 2011 ASR has also signed the United Nations Principles of Responsible Investment (UNPRI) and the United Nations Global Compact (UN GC). Furthermore, ASR Nederland's CIO is the Chairman from the Investments Policy Committee at the Dutch Association of Insureres (Verbond van Verzekeraars). Under his coordination, the Verbond van Verzekeraars has agreed an industry-wide Sustainable Investments Code, which came into force on January 1st, 2012. ASR Nederlandhas was compliant with the Code already before the start. In 2013, ASR signed the UNEP FI Principles for Sustainable Insurers. In 2014, ASR signed the UN Call for Action against corruption. In 2015, ASR signed the Paris Pledge for Action to support the commitment to a safe and stable climate in which temparature rise is limited to under 2 degrees Celsius.
In order to expand and enhance its engagement activities, a.s.r. has embarked on a partnership with RobecoSAM’s Governance & Active Ownership department with effect from 2016. The engagement program is based on remediating conflicts with the UN Global Compact (UNGC) in relation to human rights, labour rights, environment issues and ethical behaviour.
a.s.r. signed the investor statement of the Business Benchmark Farm Animal Welfare (BBFAW) published in May 2016 to contribute to creating greater awareness of animal welfare across the food sector and among investors.
a.s.r. also signed the UN PRI ESG Statement on ESG in Credit Ratings in May 2016, supporting the vision that ESG factors are relevant to the creditworthiness of issuers.4
In July 2016, a.s.r. Financial Markets ESG committee approved several means to advance a.s.r. SRI policy regarding environment and climate change, including:
• stricter engagement and/or exclusion policy for systematic and/or severe breaches to the environment
• exclusion policy for companies deriving 30% or more of their revenues related to coal and lignite.
In 2017, these means were followed up with additional criteria to reduce the CO2 footprint and contribute positively to the
energy transition within a.s.r. investment portfolios:
- exclusion policy for companies deriving 33%1 or more of their revenues related to tar sands and oil shale
- exclusion policy for countries scoring low (less than 50) in the Environmental Performance Index (EPI)
- best in class policy according to the SDG country ranking published by the Sustainable Development Solutions
Network (SDSN) and the Bertelsmann Stiftung. The weighted average score of a.s.r. sovereign portfolio will be
positioned within the first quartile of the SDG Index. Herewith a.s.r. wants to prize counties developing policies
and progressing in broadly recognised sustainability issues next to climate/environment such as health, gender
equality or education.
Additionally, a.s.r. has strengthen a number of its SRI themes by signing the UN PRI Investor Statement for the World No
Tobacco Day, the UN PRI Investor engagement to remediate child labour in the cocoa industry and the UNPRI Investor
expectations on deforestation in the cattle supply chains, which expectedly shall be followed by subsequent engagements
on soy and timber/pulp and paper.
In the process to centralize all the related SRI information in the same sites, this document has expanded the disclosure of
current SRI criteria as for example on environment or animal welfare. Furthermore a.s.r. has published 2 papers in 2017
regarding ‘carbon bubble’ and ‘positioning paper on climate and energy transition’, which deal in detail over these specific
topics and are complementary to a.s.r. SRI policy.
a.s.r. takes ownership as an active shareholder in its associates and exercises its voting rights with due care in accordance with the a.s.r. Voting Policy, which is aligned to the a.s.r. SRI policy.
The SRI policy is fully applicable to ASR Nederland N.V. and all its subsidiaries (ASR Levensverzekering N.V., ASR Schadeverzekeringen N.V., N.V. Amersfoortse Verzekeringen, Europeesche Verzekeringen N.V. and ASR Vermogensbeheer B.V.).