We apply negative screening in two ways:
1) Client mandated - where requested by Clients, assets are typically screened due to specific activities (e.g, alcohol, tobacco, gambling or weapons manufacturing). Country-specific screening is only generally conducted in relation to government sanctions.
2) Product specific – one key pillar for our Sustainable strategies focuses on negative screening. These consider the Febelfin principles and screen out for certain industriesThe strategies that come under these are the GEM, European and Global sustainable strategies.
Positive best in class screening
We have 4 sustainable equity funds (Intrepid, Europe, Global and GEM sustainable equity), which we categorise as having a best-in-class approach. These strategies go beyond the negative screening criteria and look to invest in companies that are best in class in their respective industries. We look to identify these using tools developed by the respective teams. Core in the identification of businesses that meet this criteria is the engagement undertaken by the teams with corporates.
Norms based screening
We subscribe to an alert service for norms-based violations from a specialist provider (ISSEthix). Our sustainable strategies mentioned above use this to exclude companies from their respective investment universe where the registration statement for the product specifies.