Sustainability at the Avadis investment foundations
Our sustainability mission statement
The Avadis investment foundations make every effort to satisfy the investment needs and objectives of their investors.
The Avadis investment foundations offer employee benefits institutions a range of different investment modules and help them develop tailor-made investment solutions. Implementing ESG policies is the responsibility of the employee benefits institution’s highest governing body.
The Avadis investment foundations provide their investors with transparent and accessible information on the subject of sustainability. This information is collected with due regard to the industry standards governing occupational pension schemes in Switzerland as applicable to the investment community.
In a dynamic market environment with evolving investment needs and regulatory requirements, the Avadis investment foundations focus on flexibility and client satisfaction.
Memberships
The Avadis investment foundations are signatories of the UN Principles for Responsible Investment (UN PRI) and have been members of the Swiss Sustainable Finance (SSF) platform since 2018. Membership in these non-profit organisations gives Avadis the opportunity to actively contribute its expertise to discussions on sustainability issues and benefit from the expertise of other members.
Affiliations
The Avadis investment foundations do not invest in companies that violate Swiss and internationally recognised sustainability principles. Specifically, companies are excluded which fail to comply with:
Moreover, the foundations also apply the list of recommended exclusions published by the Swiss Association for Responsible Investment (SVVK-ASIR).
This list includes companies involved in the production of anti-personnel mines, cluster munitions, nuclear weapons outside the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), conduct-based exclusions (companies that fail to engage in dialogue or whose business model causes a gross violation of normative criteria) and, most recently, sovereign bonds issued by twelve countries against which Switzerland has imposed a comprehensive arms embargo or repression sanctions due to a violation of international law, specifically human rights.
Engagement
In their capacity as target fund investors, the Avadis investment foundations have been supporting corporate dialogue in the areas of human rights, labour rights, the environment and corruption since 1 January 2023. This dialogue is consolidated and managed by proxy advisor Institutional Shareholder Service (ISS). Prior to this, our mandated asset managers were free to deliver “engagement” according to their own guidelines.
Exercise of voting rights
Since 1 January 2023, selected equities target funds (Avadis funds) of the Avadis investment foundations have arranged for their voting rights in Swiss and foreign public limited companies to be actively exercised according to the recommendations of a proxy advisor. This service will relieve investors from having to work out their own voting preferences in the future.
