text stringlengths 0 7.73k |
|---|
Page 8 sur 49. |
Award submission overview & methodology. |
This report covers different asset perimeters, which reflects our twofold methodology approach for the Award submission: • On a broad level, our RI policies, ESG scoring, sector and names exclusions, shareholder engagement, carbon footprinting and “green” investments ramp up are implemented on our General Accounts asse... |
We believe this dual approach covers both the spirit and the letter of the Awards criteria, and more generally is in line with our shared ambition to understand financially material climate-related risks and opportunities. |
Page 9 sur 49 2.1 TRANSPARENCY ON THE INTEGRATION OF CLIMATE-RELATED CRITERIA INTO INVESTMENT DECISIONS AND ENGAGEMENT. |
The Group proactively conducts an in-depth analysis of ESG performance across asset classes (equity, corporate fixed income, sovereign debt, i.e. over 547Bn€, or 87% of the Group’s General Accounts assets. Since 2015, a particular focus on climate risk management and carbon-related factors emerged and complemented this... |
To date the Group’s initiatives which impact investment decisions are the following: |
Coal divestment • In May 2015, following a careful analysis of “stranded assets” hypotheses, AXA decided to divest from companies most exposed to coal-related activities. AXA believes that divestment is not the sole answer to Energy Transition alignment strategies, but has its full place alongside the more systematic a... |
Green investments • In May 2015, the Group committed to tripling its green investments, aiming to reach over 3bn€ by 2020 for its General Accounts. These investments will principally be in renewable energy infrastructure debt and equity, green bonds and private equity. The Group currently has approximately 1.5bn€ of "g... |
Page 10 sur 49. |
In addition to these initiatives, AXA conducts analyses which can inform investment decisions : • Carbon footprinting: as described in our Montreal Pledge report: https://www.axa.com/en/aboutus/low-carbon-investment. AXA signed the "Montreal Pledge" to assess and disclose the carbon intensity of our investments. This c... |
Below are some ESG Impact Report screenshots, showing how the information is organized for our Portfolio Managers: |
Page 11 sur 49 |
Page 12 sur 49. |
Criteria 2.1.1. - Consistency of the business objectives. |
As described in this report, analyzing climate-related factors is not only a risk mitigation strategy (see sections 2 and 3), but also an initiative which can be driven by new business motivations. The growing awareness on Climate Change issues may increase the demand for specific Green Products, in both Property & Cas... |
In order to pursue such opportunities, an analysis of new customer needs is conducted at different levels, leading to the development of new offers, such as green insurance products, prevention services and “Green” and SRI products. Business upsides are difficult to assess, as they depend on consuming trends and social... |
Business upsides can also come in an indirect manner such as via enhanced reputation, customer loyalty, employee engagement or brand value. As a case in point, AXA’s climate-related initiatives (coal divestment, FSB TCFD membership, etc.) are a key positive factor according to Interbrand, which values AXA’s brand in ex... |
Criteria 2.1.2. Acknowledgement of the shortcomings of the approach. |
As described above, AXA measures the carbon footprint / intensity of a large proportion of its investments. This footprinting work highlights our portfolio’s largest carbon emitters, which may be an interesting “carbon asset risk” proxy. It is a potentially useful tool to understand high carbon holdings, revealing that... |
However, shortcomings remain: the benchmarks used for comparison are generally biased toward fossil fuels compared to the “real” economy. Carbon data coverage can be incomplete for certain asset classes, and may not be the right metric for target-setting purposes. Carbon data is a snapshot of current emissions, but is ... |
Page 13 sur 49. |
As a result, this KPI is not pushed as a systematic and robust performance indicator across our Portfolio Manager community. These shortcomings may be partly addressed by setting ESG performance targets, if appropriate, as these include an analysis of climate strategies and not only footprint. |
More importantly, these shortcomings are one of the justifications for the more sophisticated analyses developed in this report. |
Criteria 2.1.3. Transparency on engagement activities with issuers and their impact. |
A brief overview of AXA’s approach to engagement. |
AXA Group aims to use its influence as a large asset owner to encourage ESG best practice in its portfolio companies. We aim to do this by: • Ensuring that all (General Account) mandates comply with the Group's ESG objectives. • Developing ESG expectations of portfolio companies. • Establishing how we will exercise our... |
Recognizing that collective action on ESG is essential, the AXA Group has been a PRI signatory since 2012, and actively engages with other UN PRI members with regards to engagement opportunities. |
Group-level engagement initiatives. |
Energy mix - Until 2016, the AXA Group had not engaged directly with issuers of the assets it owns on climate-related issues. Our investment managers, AXA IM and AB Global, are tasked with engaging on our behalf and we monitor their activities as set out in the AXA Group Global RI policy. In Q3 2016, the Group Responsi... |
Page 14 sur 49. |
ESG Footprint Committee – The Group RI Committee has set up a sub-committee tasked with reviewing and addressing a selection of “high ESG risk” companies with a material reputation risk, on a name by name basis. The ESG Footprint Committee is composed of representatives from both Group Investments and Corporate Respons... |
After having short-listed three to ten high ESG-reputation risks issuers, each company benefits from an extensive ESG analysis which highlights reputation risks and potential impacts on the business performance. This thorough analysis is followed by a vote deciding between three options: • No concerns / Eligible - the ... |
Asset Manager-level engagement. |
AXA Group monitors the activities of AXA IM and AB annually via an internal process, overseen by the RI Committee. The RIC continues to work closely with both AXA IM and AB, especially on ESG integration. The engagement approach taken by each Group entity is summarized below. |
AXA IM. |
AXA IM, one of AXA’s wholly-owned asset management affiliate, is responsible for the substantial majority of the ESG integration activities that relate to Group (General Account) assets. Its approach and policy on engagement are therefore a good proxy for how the majority of Group assets are subject to oversight from a... |
Page 15 sur 49. |
AXA IM tracks its engagements and progress against established objectives. The process is summarized as follows: • Establish engagement plan including issue of concerns and objectives • Raise issue of concern with company representatives • Evaluate company response against engagement objectives; if not successful • Esc... |
AXA IM recent voting & engagement statistics |
Page 16 sur 49. |
AXA IM has undertaken the following activities to respond to climate change risk and opportunity • Established a climate change sensitive analyses for informing investment decisions and asset allocation strategy • Targeted low carbon or climate resilient investments • Reduced portfolio exposure to emissions intensive o... |
A selection of recent climate-related initiatives. |
Carbon Risk Mitigation - ‘Aiming for A’ – A collective initiative We joined a group of leading responsible investors to urge companies in the extractives sectors to improve their reporting and disclosure around the challenges posed to their businesses by the global push to mitigate climate change risks; we have also as... |
“Our Committee supported the work of the ‘Aiming for A’ coalition in the extractives sectors to bring the issues of carbon emission and climate change to the general meetings’ agendas. It is increasingly clear to our Committee that we need to use our influence as investors to push Boards on broader risk issues, includi... |
Page 17 sur 49. |
Chairman, AXA IM Corporate Governance Committee. |
Statoil – Norway – A one-to-one meeting We supported a shareholder resolution at Statoil asking the company to improve its disclosure on strategic issues regarding managing the risks and opportunities associated with climate change. Similar resolutions were filed and supported at the general meetings of BP and Royal Du... |
Company reaction : Statoil’s board welcomes shareholder interest in better understanding the company’s risk exposure and strategic approach to climate change … [and] recommends the general meeting to support the proposal.” |
Regulatory risk in the Automotive Sector Following disclosure on Volkswagen’s breaches around emissions, auto sector companies are facing increasing pressures to align with the emerging regulatory trend that aims to limit the ability of companies to externalize their environmental impacts. We believe that this is a rel... |
Company reaction : “Fiat Chrysler Automobiles believes that a comprehensive approach, based on the full spectrum of solutions, must be adopted to truly tackle road transport emissions. This means not only focusing on continued emissions reduction of new vehicles, but also focusing on other factors that influence overal... |
AB Global. |
In 2015, AB Global (an AXA majorityowned asset management affiliate) developed an engagement framework to determine priorities while at the same time providing flexibility to address adhoc issues appropriately. The framework has quantitative and qualitative inputs. AB considers issues such as the size of the position, ... |
In a recent study of 2014-2015 Mutual Fund Proxy Voting Season Records, AB ranked among the top four asset |
Page 18 sur 49 manager voting in favor of climate resolutions1. |
AB participated in its first collaborative engagement during 2015 under the PRI's collaborative engagement on human rights issues in the extractives industry. As part of this initiative AB was a co-lead for a specific company. AB plans to use this experience to determine how and when collaborative engagements may be mo... |
AB tracks company meetings in its global company calendar. This includes the majority of company engagements (on all issues) but does not track the specific meeting agenda or items discussed, including ESG topics. In 2016, AB introduced an engagement database to capture specific ESG-related engagements and ESG integrat... |
The focus of this monitoring is on the most significant engagements. Since Q4 2014, AB’s Proxy Team has been tracking proxy related engagements, including all meetings offered by companies. For 2015, this totaled 101 issuers. |
Criteria 2.1.4. Transparency on the integration of criteria into asset manager mandates + Criteria 2.1.5. Relevance of the decarbonization target and strategy. |
AXA’s asset managers are internal (wholly / majority owned subsidiaries): mandates are not submitted to external-facing RFPs and investment processes are highly centralized. This is why the Group is able to implement certain guidelines related to ESG. Our current proposal is to require Portfolio Managers to at least ma... |
Furthermore, in 2015, all Portfolio Managers were required to divest a large number of names exposed to the coal industry, as described under 2.1. This was implemented in full by year end 2015. The coal divestment slightly improved our ESG performance and of course the carbon intensity of our assets. Of note, some of t... |
1 Mutual Fund Families’ Support for Climate Change Resolutions: 2014-2015 |
Page 19 sur 49 2.2 Climate Goals. |
Criteria 2.2.1. Conversion of climate objectives into indicative targets specific to investments in financial assets. |
Our Approach. |
AXA decided to undertake a new series of analyses to test the climate consistency of its investments. Our approach is two-fold, focusing on • Testing the alignment of our investments with a 2°scenario, based on energy transition scenarios developed by International Energy Agency (IEA)2 • Testing the contribution of our... |
To meet subsequent potential climate goals, we identified three methodologies for improving investment decisions: • Assessing transition risk in high-carbon sectors • Back-testing portfolios to identify a plan for stock reallocation to meet the 2°C benchmark, • Maximizing energy and ecology transition impact by increas... |
Subsets and Splits
No community queries yet
The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.