ABP

"In 2018, APG joined the initiative of seventy food producersand supermarket chains to stop the deforestation of theBrazilian Cerrado region. This savannah area is one of themost important and endangered ecosystems in the world.Due to deforestation in connection with agriculture, largesections of these forests have disappeared in recent years.Deforestation plays an important role in global warming;about 12% of all carbon emissions can be attributed to thefelling of trees. Trees produce oxygen and absorb carbonfrom the air. In addition, greenhouse gases are emittedwhen forests are cut down and burnt." " In September, APG joined a call from 251 major investors to halt deforestation in the Amazon. In recent years, a lot of forest has been lost in this region due to logging and forest fires. The investors emphasize the importance of responsible land use for the preservation of biodiversity, food security and the achievement of the Paris climate targets. Therefore, illegal logging and forest burning for agriculture must be tackled firmly. Also, less forest must be logged legally, and companies must take measures to ensure that no forest has to disappear to make room for their commercial operations."

"We want the companies in which we invest to respectthe UN Global Compact principles on human rights, laborconditions, the environment and anti-corruption. If acompany does not respect these principles, we can put iton our exclusion list if we do not succeed in getting thecompany to improve."

"Proposals for new investments (above a certain size) in non-listed companies and new mandates for external managers are also assessed by specialists in the field of sustainability and good governance. In addition to their advisory role, they are also involved in formulating the conditions to be included in the contracts that form the basis for the new investments [...] An important part of the responsible investment policy that we implement on behalf of our clients is the inclusion policy. This means that we assess all companies in which we can invest by means of shares or bonds on four criteria: return, risk, costs and sustainability. We call companies that score well on all four criteria ‘leaders’. As of 2020, we will only invest in companies that are assessed as ‘laggards’ if the portfolio manager expects to be able to convince them to improve. He must find the risk, return and costs attractive enough to put time and effort into such an improvement process. If these criteria have been met, we can invest in these companies and we refer to them as ‘improvement potentials’. We tell such companies which improvements we wish to see and we monitor the progress closely." "Companies that do not comply with global agreements We want the companies in which we invest to respect the UN Global Compact principles on human rights, labor conditions, the environment and anti-corruption. If a company does not respect these principles, we can put it on our exclusion list if we do not succeed in getting the company to improve."

APG publish pie charts demonstrating that they asssessed 90% of their investment portfolio on inclusion criteria (including sustainability criteria) in 2018. Of those assessed, "5,600 companies meet our criteria" and "2,100 do not meet the criteria" - "109 of these have been assessed as improvement potentials". " Our clients want the companies we invest in to respect the principles of the UN Global Compact in terms of human rights, labor conditions, the environment and combating corruption. As in 2018, there are three companies on our exclusion list due to violating these principles: the Chinese energy company PetroChina, the Japanese energy company Tokyo Electric Power Company and the American supermarket chain Walmart. Unlisted companies There are only listed companies on the exclusion list. In contracts with external asset managers it is specified that they must also apply our exclusion policy to unlisted companies. The list that is used for this purpose includes another 119 companies."