A responsible approach
Welcome to the 2023 edition summary of sustainable investing at Omnis, where we outline our commitment to integrating environmental, social, and governance (ESG) factors into our investment approach. We hope you find it interesting and informative.
As many of you will have seen, the world is full of products and services with promises about sustainable credentials. Regulatory bodies across the world, and particularly in the UK and Europe, are focussed on ensuring transparency in the way investment products and services, that make sustainable claims and promises, are labelled and presented to consumers. We welcome the clarity that this regulatory focus should provide.
At Omnis, we aim to select best-of-breed investment managers and approaches that are right for the funds we offer investors. Whilst we continue to focus on our primary goal of seeking good long-term financial outcomes, we do undertake a lot of work to ensure transparency on sustainability matters in our funds. Firstly, we incorporate ESG factors within our investment manager assessment process using a scoring system for each fund. We base these scores on a range of issues, including how the managers run our funds, as well as the ESG characteristics of the individual investments they hold at the point of assessment.
Secondly, we require our investment managers to meet some minimum sustainability standards as a starting point, and we continually consider their own sustainable policies and the actions coming from these. We ask them to sign up to the United Nation's Principles for Responsible Investment (UNPRI) and the UK Stewardship Code, which means that they must seek and disclose information on sustainability and stewardship issues. Finally, we partner with investment managers who insist on transparency from the companies they invest in for our funds.
It is important to recognise that the Omnis funds do not currently have specific sustainability-based objectives or targeted outcomes which are reflected in the way in which the funds are managed. Omnis, however, believes that the most effective investment processes will be those supported by a high level of consideration of sustainable/responsible investment related matters and those underpinned by active stewardship.
In this guide, we share details of our approach to sustainable investment matters, as well as additional resources to help you better understand how we consider sustainability within our funds.
Robert Jeffree, Chief Executive Officer