Wesleyan's investment team has been named ‘Responsible Investor of the Year’ by the Insurance Asset Risk Awards 2022.
The team’s long-term fund management approach naturally incorporates responsible and sustainable investment considerations, in line with Wesleyan’s values and because we are signatories of the UN-sponsored ‘Principles for Responsible Investment’.
Martin Lawrence, Director of Investments at Wesleyan, said: “We are really proud to have been named ‘Responsible Investor of the Year’ by the Insurance Asset Risk Awards.
“The business launched its enhanced Sustainable Investing Policy in October 2021 and we have refined our investment approach to match, which applies to all our directly-managed customer funds and not just a selection of them.
“We have also expanded our in-house Sustainable Investment (SI) Team, to give us the additional expertise required to consider a broad range of Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) factors in the companies we invest in. As a result, we can align our activities with the Sustainable Investing Policy and its three principles of ‘Reducing Harm’, ‘Positive Impact’ and ‘Driving Change’, and invest in businesses that we believe are sustainable.
“In our team’s view, sustainable businesses are more likely to be adaptable in an ever-changing world and, by extension, be more profitable in the long term. So, investing in them is the ‘right’ thing to do for our customers and the planet, but it’s an approach that dovetails with our team’s long-term investment strategy too.
“We take our role as professional investors seriously. If we think a company isn’t doing enough to become more sustainable, we reach out to their management teams and Boards to encourage positive change whenever possible. We also use our corporate voting rights to achieve better outcomes on ESG-related issues such as environmental concerns, safety track records, and Board diversity.
“As a mutual serving some of society’s most trusted professions, we have sustainability at the heart of our business. We care about doing the right thing for our customers, their communities and the wider world, which means we have a duty to invest in a responsible, sustainable way. As ‘Responsible Investor of the Year’, our customers can rest assured that we will act as responsible guardians of their money, with a firm commitment to achieving better outcomes for them and their investments.”
Sustainable investing
Read Wesleyan’s Sustainable Investing Policy in full and find out more information.
The Insurance Asset Risk Awards recognise outstanding achievement in the UK and European institutional and retail asset management arenas.