Our approach to responsible investing

Responsible investing involves considering environmental, social and governance (ESG) issues when making investment decisions and influencing companies or assets (known as active ownership or stewardship).

At Evelyn Partners, responsible investing is the default approach across all our investment services and products with a combined focus on traditional financial risk and significant ESG factors, together with an active stewardship programme.

At the strategic level, we use an ESG inclusive approach, exploring themes that affect us all over the long term, called “megatrends". These are powerful, disruptive forces that shape economies, businesses, and societies. They drive innovation, steer investment and create new ideas.

Identifying these trends helps guide us to opportunities – and away from risks. Focusing on these profound environmental, social, and political changes in the global landscape ultimately helps strengthen the resilience of our portfolios at Evelyn Partners.

As long-term stewards of your assets, the ESG credentials of investee companies remain an important consideration within our process.

We believe that an integrated approach leads to more resilient portfolios. As long-term investors we have always looked beyond the financial statements, incorporating material non-financial factors into our analysis. This, together with a strong commitment to active stewardship, is the basis of our responsible investment approach.

The roles of financial analyst and responsible investment analyst are combined to ensure that material ESG factors are considered effectively within the financial decision process at Evelyn Partners.

We are signatories to the United Nations Principles for Responsible Investing (UN PRI) and are committed to the principles of the UK Stewardship Code 2020. We are members of:

• Climate Action 100+, the world’s largest investor engagement initiative on climate change
• Find it, Fix it, Prevent it, which harnesses the power of the investment community to increase the effectiveness of corporate actions against modern slavery
• The Investor Forum, which helps investors work collectively to escalate material issues with boards of UK-listed companies
• Nature Action 100, a global investor engagement initiative focused on driving greater corporate ambition and action to reverse nature and biodiversity loss
• Corporate Mental Health Benchmark, as founding members, this collaborative engagement provides a window on how 100 of the UK’s largest companies approach and manage workplace mental health
• Seasonal Workers Scheme, we signed an investor statement with the aim of targeting companies who employ overseas workers though the Seasonal Worker Scheme
• Votes against Slavery, set up to urge companies to meet the reporting requirements of Section 54 of the UK Modern Slavery Act 2015
• FAIRR, a collaborative investor network that raises awareness of the environmental, social and governance (ESG) risks and opportunities in the food sector. FAIRR is involved in proactive dialogues with investors, food companies and stakeholders around material ESG issues, such as deforestation, biodiversity and climate

Our investment team has long been active in looking beyond the financial statements of companies to make investments. In addition to our sector specific non-financial risk framework, we have now identified three bottom-up priorities to inform our responsible investment process which are given specific focus for our investment selection, risk management and stewardship activities. This has been greatly assisted by the emergence of new forms of disclosures by companies that continue to improve. Our three priorities are Environmental Resilience, Workplace Standards and Excellence in Governance.

• Environmental Resilience includes the examination of a company’s business model in terms of its environmental footprint, including carbon, and its plans to adapt to our future, both in terms of risk mitigation as well as finding ways to generate revenues in climate related solutions.
• Our social orientated theme is Workplace Standards, addressing the commitment of investee companies to maintaining acceptable conditions operationally and in their supply chain. We believe that fair and equitable policies form a foundation for ongoing productivity and success.
• The final theme of Excellence in Governance comes with the expectation of a competent, independent, inclusive, and committed board that aligns strategies with goals and with reasonable, long term remuneration terms. We expect them to have appointed credible management teams and make changes where necessary.

Our process also involves sector specific identification and assessment of key material ESG risks using a framework based on the widely adopted SASB standards. Recent controversies are also highlighted, with these reviews conducted on a regular cycle for direct equities and bonds.

To enhance our analysis of investments, we use external screening services through third-party providers. MSCI ESG Manager provides us with ESG data for over 10,000 direct equity holdings, and we can screen over 67,000 mutual funds and exchange-traded funds.

For more information on our integrated approach, please refer to Sustainability Related Disclosures here.

More information on our approach to responsible investment and sustainability related investing can be found in our guide to Responsible Investing.

Speak to Evelyn Partners about responsible investing