On Tuesday december 4, 2018 received the IPE-reward for environmental, social and governance (ESG) investments. The award was granted in recognition of APG’s efforts to develop tangible criteria to determine whether or not a company’s products and services contribute to the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
Gerben de Zwart, Head of quantitative equities at APG, received the award at the annual IPE Conference, which this year was held in Dublin. ‘Our clients are explicit about the specific societal goals they want to achieve and actively allocate capital to. We have developed an innovative methodology to measure and disclose their contribution to the UN Sustainable Development Goals, while meeting their risk and return requirements.’
As part of this effort, APG has created a framework (the so-called SDI Taxonomies) to translate the UN Sustainable Development Goals into UN Sustainable Development Investments (SDIs), bridging the gap between the UN’s targets and tangible investment opportunities. APG is currently taking steps to integrate big data and artificial intelligence to further advance the company classification of SDIs for the benefit of our clients and their beneficiaries.
Two of our clients have set concrete targets for their SDI exposure in 2020: ABP aims to have €58 billion in SDIs, whereas bpfBOUW has set a target of €11 billion. Last year, APG received the IPE-award for Climate Related Risk Management.