Responsible Investing

How Responsible investment works within AMP Investments (AMPI) 

Factors informing AMPI’s investment decisions are primarily financial and economic, including investment style and approach. AMPI also considers ESG factors in our investment process because we acknowledge there are links between a company’s environmental and social impacts, the quality of its corporate governance, and its long-term financial success. AMPI’s ESG integration will vary across funds as described below.

Where Responsible investment considerations are implemented

AMP Investments appoints underlying investment managers to invest the Fund’s assets. This is structured in either of the following ways:

• Directly held assets: where assets are controlled directly by AMP Investments and managed under an investment mandate agreement with an underlying manager. In this instance, we are able to influence the manager’s ESG considerations.
  
  
• Indirectly held assets: where assets are controlled indirectly by AMP Investments via investment in an underlying manager’s pooled fund. In this instance, the ESG policies of that manager’s pooled fund will apply.

The proportion of the assets of the Fund subject to the Responsible Investment considerations will be dynamic with both market movements and asset allocation changes and will vary across the Fund ranges due to varying allocations to assets where restrictions do not apply (indirectly held assets, cash, sovereign bonds, exchange traded funds and derivatives). Please refer to the PDS (and Incorporated information) for each fund, which sets out the extent to which Responsible investment considerations are (or are not) taken into account for the purpose of selecting, retaining or realising the investment and whether the majority of assets are held directly or indirectly.

Our responsible investing approach covers the following five aspects:
 

1. Restricted investments

Restricted investments preclude an underlying investment manager from investing in certain companies and issuers based on AMPIs’ social and governance considerations. These screened out companies and issuers are represented in our Restricted investments list.

Our Restricted investments criteria is only applied to Directly held assets but does not apply to cash, sovereign bonds, exchange traded funds and derivatives even if directly held.

2. Voting and engagement

Voting and engagement mean that we can use our rights as a shareholder to support ESG and sustainability issues. For Directly held assets, we can do this in two key ways:

• By exercising our rights as a shareholder to vote at shareholder meetings.
• By engaging with companies, their management teams and boards as part of the investment research process.

We generally delegate these actions to the Fund’s underlying investment managers, however, AMPI can also direct the investment managers on how to vote. To learn more please see our Proxy Voting Policy.

3. Advocacy and collaboration

Through our AMP Group memberships, we support investor collaborations and partner with industry groups, including:

• Principles for Responsible Investment (PRI) 
• Responsible Investment Association of Australasia (RIAA) 
• Investors Against Slavery and Trafficking (IAST)
• Investor Group on Climate Change (IGCC) 
• Climate Action 100+ 
• Business Council for Sustainable Development Australia (BCSDA). 

4. Reporting and information 

We are committed to sharing information on ESG integration through regular reports and information. These include the following documents:

• AMP Investment’s Proxy Voting Disclosure Document
• AMP Investment’s Restricted investments list
• AMP Limited Sustainability Report and AMP Limited Modern Slavery Statement (please refer to the AMP Limited Corporate Sustainability page)

5. AMP Limited’s corporate sustainability approach  

AMP Investments is part of the AMP Group (AMP Limited). AMP Limited also considers sustainability issues which it considers are material to its customers, people and partners, and communities and environment. For more information on how AMP Limited manages the risks and opportunities associated with these issues, please visit the AMP Limited corporate sustainability page which contains the full AMP Limited sustainability reporting suite.