Our focus areas

Why is it important to us?

In August 2021, United Nations (UN) Secretary-General António Guterres called climate change a “code red for humanity.” Launching the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) latest report, he warned the world that “the alarm bells are deafening, and the evidence is irrefutable”.¹

Just a few months later, the world’s leaders gathered in Glasgow for COP26, the biggest and possibly most important climate change conference to date. Nations took a range of decisions in the collective effort to limit global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees.

While there were no perfect outcomes, the UN said that “after six years of strenuous negotiations, pending items that prevented the full implementation of the Paris Agreement on carbon markets and transparency have finally been approved.”²

Against this background, it’s fair to say that 2021 was an important year for climate change action.

Why is it important to us?

Modern slavery is a distressing and pervasive part of global supply chains and one of the most pressing human rights issues that investors can take action on.

There are multiple factors that drive modern slavery and allow it to flourish, including economic dislocation, endemic poverty and ongoing conflict and displacement. The COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated these conditions, increasing the vulnerability of workers to modern slavery across the globe.

Why is it important to us?

Diversity matters because people matter. Everyone deserves the opportunity to be included in a broad range of work, leisure and community activities regardless of their gender, race, sexuality or any other difference. It is the right thing to do.

Moreover, greater diversity leads to better outcomes for our staff, our clients and the community. Different ways of thinking and different life experiences create more varied teams who can make better decisions.

Within our own business, we believe that having an inclusive culture, where our people are comfortable and supported to be who they are, regardless of their background, is the foundation that enables diversity to thrive across our business.

We also recognise the challenges we face in achieving better and broader diversity in our business and wider industry. Although there is not one single solution to reaching this goal, we need to hold ourselves to account, just as we hold the companies we invest in to account on this subject.

Why is it important to us?

Nature and biodiversity cannot be considered in isolation from climate change. The impacts of climate change such as temperature rises, increases in extreme weather events and increasing carbon dioxide in the atmosphere are already having substantial impacts on nature. At the same time, biodiversity conservation is critical to addressing climate change, meaning that these issues are mutually dependent.

There are significant investment implications of nature loss. More than half of the world’s economic output – US$44tn of economic value generation – is moderately or highly dependent on nature.³ As the Task Force on Nature-related Financial Disclosures points out, “nature loss therefore represents significant risk to corporate and financial stability”.

Nature, Biodiversity and Nature-related Risk explained

According to the Convention on Biological Diversity, biodiversity is “the variability among living organisms from all sources”.
Nature is all the existing systems on earth - the features, forces and processes, such as the weather, the sea and mountains. As such, biodiversity is a crucial part of nature. Nature risk is related to the loss of natural assets. It may directly impact business’ or economies’ operations, or negatively affect society in a way that creates market risks.