ORIX Europe
Business Overview
Asset management of global equity and fixed income
Sustainability Themes
- #Investments and lending that take ESG into account
Our Approach to Our Sustainability Themes
Robeco
We will continue our activities in accordance with our Net Zero Roadmap and Biodiversity Roadmap. In particular, we plan to expand our Biodiversity Framework. We also aim to increase impact investment AUM, as exemplified by our introduction of a range of transition investment funds.
Transtrend
Our ambition is to further refine the measuring and reporting of our carbon footprint. We will also monitor the debate on the effectiveness of carbon offsetting initiatives to enhance our offsetting program where possible. Additionally, we will continue our role as a responsible investor, including our engagement activities on issues around market functioning.
Harbor Capital
We will continue to apply our proprietary framework to provide various sustainable investing options to our clients.
Boston Partners
We will continue to leverage our sustainability and engagement team’s expertise to make sustainability-informed investment decisions and advocate for change.
Business Activities and Sustainability Themes Matrix
- Sustainable investing (Robeco)
- #Investments and lending that take ESG into account
- Sustainable investing (Boston Partners Global Investors)
- #Investments and lending that take ESG into account
- Sustainable investing (Transtrend)
- #Investments and lending that take ESG into account
Sustainable investing (Robeco)
- #Investments and lending that take ESG into account
The following initiatives are a few of the ways in which Robeco (100% subsidiary of ORIX) commits to ESG in its business.
1. Principles for Responsible Investment (PRI) Signatory
Robeco became a signatory to the PRI in 2006. In 2020, Robeco achieved A+ scores for all PRI modules as it previously did in 2018. Robeco was also named in the PRI Leaders' Group based on our climate-related approach and reporting standards.
2. ESG integration
As of December 31, 2023, total assets under management (AUM) at Robeco was 180.6 billion EUR, of which total AUM integrating ESG elements was 177.0 billion EUR (98% of total AUM).
This can be further broken down into three categories:
Strategy | Strategy details |
---|---|
Sustainability inside strategies | These incorporate the use of proprietary research, exclusions, and voting and engagement. (AUM 136.1 billion EUR.) |
Sustainability focused strategies | These strategies have more specific sustainability targets for ESG profiles. (AUM 18.0 billion EUR.) |
Towards impact strategies | These strategies aim to make a discernible impact by investing in measurable sustainable themes. (AUM 22.9 billion EUR.) |
Please see the following report for details.
Integrated Annual Report 2023 [7.19MB]
3. Engagement
Robeco actively uses its ownership rights to engage with companies because it believes engagement leads to improvements in sustainable corporate behavior, creating a positive impact not only on its investment but also on society at large.
Robeco has two engagement strategies:
1) Value engagement, the objective of which is to create value for investors and society by improving sustainability conduct and corporate governance;
2) Enhanced engagement, the objective of which is to address companies that severely and structurally breach minimum behavioral norms in areas such as human rights, labor, environment, and anti-corruption.
Under both strategies, Robeco first uses constructive dialogue and its right to vote to encourage change, but will use adverse proxy voting, shareholder resolutions, director nominations or legal actions as escalation measures if the company does not respond to dialogue. As a last resort, Robeco or its clients can decide to exclude a company from its investment universe.
4. Engagement and proxy voting overview including climate-related issues
With over 20 years of experience in engagement and voting, Robeco's integrated approach to active ownership is widely recognized as representing best practice in the asset management industry. We support shareholder proposals on ESG themes if they support long-term, sustainable shareholder value creation.
Climate change took center stage as the most significant systemic ESG risk, and Robeco redoubled its efforts to meet the challenge. Through our commitment to achieving net zero carbon emissions across all our assets under management by 2050, the further development of our Climate Change Policy, and significant engagement successes, we made a clear statement that investors cannot fall behind in the race to meet the goals of the Paris Agreement. As part of this commitment, in October 2021, Robeco announced its Net Zero Roadmap, which outlines the steps we aim to take to reach net zero by 2050, including the publication of interim decarbonization targets.
Please see the following reports for details.
Stewardship Policy [2.1MB]
Climate change and Covid-19 lead Stewardship Report
Proxy Voting Season Overview [2.3MB]
5. Shareholder Rights Directive II
Robeco is committed and well positioned to adhere to SRD II—the amended Shareholder Rights Directive by the European Commission (applicable to institutional investors in European Equities)—in addition to relevant stewardship codes that aim to encourage long-term shareholder engagement. We have a long-standing focus on responsible investing and long-term shareholder engagement. We use our ownership rights to constructively engage with investee companies and to serve the long-term interests of our clients.
A dedicated team of engagement specialists maintains an active dialogue with approximately 230 companies a year on themes, which are material from a financial and sustainability perspective, and which we identify in consultation with our investors. This has proven to be a successful means of influencing corporate behavior. Robeco also votes at approximately 7,000 shareholder meetings each year. All of Robeco's activities are in line with the Principles for Responsible Investing (PRI), which require asset managers to be active owners and incorporate ESG factors into their ownership policies and practices, in addition to SRD II.
Please see the following report for details.
Shareholder Rights Directive II
Sustainable investing (Boston Partners Global Investors)
- #Investments and lending that take ESG into account
Boston Partners manages about 17.0 billion USD in assets with sustainable and socially screened investments (as of March 31, 2024). Boston Partners also emphasizes engagement in order to improve the sustainability of its investee companies, and publishes a monthly engagement report.
For further details, please refer to Boston Partners’ Engagement and Sustainability page.
Sustainable investing (Transtrend)
- #Investments and lending that take ESG into account
For many years already we actively engage with exchanges on the topic of market functioning, e.g. on settlement price methodologies and trade cancellations, especially when during our daily trading routines we observe situations where we believe prices are not representative. More recently our discussions with exchanges also cover the topic of "responsible sourcing", i.e. whether or not contract specifications of listed futures contracts should reflect environmental and social requirements. Furthermore, we actively engage in industry discussions on the role of derivatives in the net zero investment framework, e.g. through participation in roundtables and various working groups of SBAI and PRI.
End of 2023, we published our first sustainability report, which provides an overview and update of our activities in the field of environmental, social and governance aspects, from both an investment and corporate perspective.