Annual Report IPF 2021 - Flipbook - Side 16
INDUSTRIENS PENSIONSFORSIKRING A/S
ANNUAL REPORT 2021
Corporate social
responsibility
Paramount for Industriens Pension is to manage
members’ pension schemes responsibly and thus
support sustainable and responsible development
in society. This is the starting point for the pension
and insurance products supplied by Industriens
Pension, for investments of pension assets and for
all other significant matters in the company.
By virtue of collective bargaining agreements,
Industriens Pension has been trusted with an
important task for industrial employees in
Denmark: We must ensure solid savings as a
supplement to the state retirement pension, and
we must generally assist financially members who
are no longer able to work due to health
challenges.
Furthermore, the growing pension assets are
invested responsibly as Industriens Pension
believes in the value of taking responsibility and
supporting the sustainable development of
society.
Finally, Industriens Pension naturally aims to serve
as a good example, and therefore we strive to
reduce the climate footprint of Industriens
Pension and ensure good conditions for
employees.
Social responsibility at Industriens Pension has a
wide reach. It is about the investments made
throughout the world, it is about the responsibility
for ensuring a contribution to provide for Danish
industrial employees in their life as pensioners, if
an insurance incident should occur, and finally it is
about the whole way in which we work and act as
a company.
Industriens Pension has drawn up a policy for
corporate social responsibility that sets out the
overall framework for our corporate social
responsibility. There is also a number of other
policies, for example for responsible investment
and active ownership, tax, prevention of money
laundering and terrorist financing, as well as a data
policy that includes our views on data ethics.
Industriens Pension believes in the value of being
an active and responsible investor. Among other
things, this will ensure that members and
businesses who pay into the pension scheme, and
society as a whole, can be confident that pension
funds are invested responsibly.
Investments
Industriens Pension’s policy on responsible
investment and active ownership was adopted by
the board of Industriens Pension and most recently
updated in March 2021. It ensures that we take
account of human rights, workers’ rights, the
environment and climate, anti-corruption and
responsible tax behaviour when we invest, and that
our investments do not contribute to activities
associated with weapons that contravene
conventions, coal mining, extraction of tar sand,
etc.
CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY
Together, these aspects are categorised as ESG
(Environmental, Social and Governance), and
Industriens Pension believes that companies’
ability to manage ESG issues affects their value
creation and, in turn, investment returns for
Industriens Pension.
In 2022, Industriens Pension will continue to focus
on responsible investments and on reducing the
carbon footprint of the portfolio. The latter will be
achieved partly by identifying renewable-energy
investments which also yield an attractive riskadjusted return.
Industriens Pension reports on work on
responsible investment and active ownership in its
corporate social responsibility report.
Respect for the climate, the environment, human
rights and labour rights, anti-corruption and taxation
will also continue as focus areas in 2022.
Furthermore, we will work to set specific CO2
reduction targets for the portfolio.
Below is a summary of the key content of the
report.
Industriens Pension has substantial investments in
renewable energy technologies that help to
promote the green transition and other climate
aspects.
Industriens Pension also seeks to promote
sustainability, including the green transition, by
exercising active ownership through dialogue and
exercising voting rights. In 2021, Industriens
Pension and other investors had a dialogue with
Royal Dutch Shell on the company’s climate
strategy. Moreover, Industriens Pension voted
against the company’s climate strategy plan at
their annual general meeting, because we believe
that it was not in accordance with the targets in
the Paris Agreement, to which Royal Dutch Shell
has acceded.
The intensifying debate on tax payment and the
ambition to ensure that companies pay their fair
share of tax has increased Industriens Pension’s
focus on these issues in recent years to ensure that
the companies in the portfolio of unlisted shares also
pay appropriately. This is through demands on
managers offering investments, including that they
comply with the tax principles to which Industriens
Pension has acceded. If this is not the case, the
general attitude is that the investment cannot be
carried out. So far, we have managed to integrate
the principles into agreements with investment
managers.
It is important for Industriens Pension to help
promote respect for labour rights and human
rights. Similarly, Industriens Pension wants to
promote positive governance, help prevent
corruption and bribery, and ensure fair taxation.
Industriens Pension has been in dialogue with a
number of portfolio companies, including the
supermarket chain, Tesco, who subsequently have
improved working conditions for their staff and
secured minimum wages.
16