Finnish financial group Evli Bank has announced that responsible investing has been earmarked as a “strategic focus area” for the business.
In a statement to investors on Monday (27 January), the company said that while corporate responsibility has been a part of its portfolio management approach for “many years” it wanted to further emphasise the importance of sustainable behaviours.
The company has vowed to improve ESG reporting for its range of client investment funds, and it will be deepening ESG integration within its portfolio management operations, launching new funds which focus specifically on responsible investment and climate targets.
“Responsibility has become an increasingly important factor for our customers, and we want to highlight the importance of its further development by making it a strategic focus area,” said Maunu Lehtimäki, CEO of Evli Bank.
“In addition, climate change mitigation has always been important to us. We want to create products that will address the challenges of climate change and set concrete goals for our operations.”
The new strategic objectives will result in a newly established Responsible Investment Executive group, which will include the CEO and members of the company’s leadership team.
Evli will now exclude tobacco manufacturers from all its funds with a 5% revenue limit. Controversial weapons manufacturers are already excluded from fund investments.
The group’s climate change principles will also be tightened, with oil sand extraction being added to the excluded sectors with a 30% revenue limit. Thermal coal companies and companies producing peat for energy production are already excluded from the company’s investment funds.
