New ESG reports add transparency in Evli's Responsible Investments

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The ESG (Environmental, Social, Governance) fund reporting aims to make Evli’s responsible investment activities more concrete and transparent. 

Until now, we have internally analyzed our funds’ ESG ratings, monitored the observance of UN Global Compact principles and implemented related influencing measures on individual companies. The ESG reports, updated four times a year, will enable anybody to evaluate Evli's funds on the basis of responsibility factors.

The ESG rating describes the responsibility risks of a fund’s investments

In the ESG report, a fund’s investments are evaluated from the perspective of ESG factors. ESG factors are environmental issues, social responsibility and corporate governance matters. The MSCI database, which is independent and the most globally comprehensive database available for the ESG analysis of equities and corporate bonds, is used for the reporting.

A fund’s ESG rating is the market-value-weighted average of the ratings of the companies in the fund. If a company does not have a rating in the MSCI database, it’s not included when calculating the fund’s rating. A fund’s ESG rating describes how well the companies in the fund have been able to oversee the fundamental ESG risks and opportunities within their own industry. A fund-specific rating scale progresses as follows, from best to worst: AAA, AA, A, BBB, BB, B, CCC.

Observance of the UN Global Compact principles monitored

In addition to the ESG rating, a fund’s investments observance of the UN Global Compact principles of the corporate social responsibility initiative is also monitored. The principles require observance of human rights, environmental issues and implementation of anti-corruption activities. The ESG report’s UN Global Compact classification is divided into four designations: 1) no violations, 2) under MSCI monitoring, 3) does not fulfill principles, and 4) unclassified, which means that the company is not under MSCI’s coverage for norm violations. Possible violations of norms in equity factor and index funds do not affect our investment decisions as the investments are based on the following of a certain factor index or index.

If norms violations are discovered in the active funds, the situation will be analyzed together with the portfolio manager and further measures will be decide on. In practice, Evli has three options: to monitor the situation, to start influencing measures or to sell off its holding. Through influencing measures, Evli aims to drive change and to carry out active discussions with companies. Influencing measures are often longer-term. All norm violations are also dealt with by Evli’s Responsible Investment Steering group which includes the management of the Wealth Management unit. During 2016, Evli had altogether 10 engagement processes.

You can find the ESG reports on each fund's page on www.evli.com/funds. These links will take you to the reports of Evli Europe and Evli Short Corporate Bond