September 7, 2023, Zurich, Switzerland
RepRisk data empowers APG Asset Management’s first-of-its-kind sustainable real estate index series
# New indices pioneer passive investing with a custom and holistic ESG component by RepRisk
RepRisk, the leading ESG data science company, empowers the iSTOXX APG Real Estate CRREM-aligned Responsible Investment Index series launched today by APG Asset Management, one of the world’s largest pension investors with EUR 541 billion AUM, with its independent and AI-powered ESG risk data.
Notably, the inclusion of RepRisk data adds sustainability dimensions to the index construction beyond climate and carbon considerations, encompassing also social and governance factors. RepRisk is the sole provider of social factors for the index construction. These additional dimensions to the index significantly broaden the range of ESG factors available, enabling clients to customize indices for their individual sustainability requirements. Furthermore, RepRisk data is uniquely suited to identify and assess adverse impacts and enable compliance with the Do No Significant Harm Principle under SFDR due to its business conduct risk focus and independent research approach.
“We are excited to provide our AI-powered and fast-moving data to accelerate innovation in the indices landscape,” said Alexandra Mihailescu Cichon, Chief Commercial Officer at RepRisk. “The incorporation of holistic ESG and business conduct considerations into index construction and investment decision-making points to a larger trend of ease-of-access to sustainable choices. We are proud to be working with APG on this pioneering series and to empower clients with more choices.”
“At APG, we are constantly innovating and investigating more responsible options for our clients,” commented Rutger van der Lubbe, Head of Global Real Estate Investment Strategy at APG. “Today's launch of our APG Real Estate CRREM-aligned RI Index strategy underlines our adherence to the highest ESG standards across the industry. Through our partnership with RepRisk we can develop our client offering, to be more sustainable and, importantly, customized.”
The iSTOXX APG Real Estate CRREM-aligned Responsible Investment Index, while passive, allows an active ESG component to customize sustainability criteria. It is constructed using APG’s methodology and blends RepRisk data with other data to create custom indices which can be designed to suit client sustainability requirements. In particular, RepRisk’s ESG and business conduct risk data is used as an input for decisions on which companies to include or exclude, monitoring of target companies, and calculating adjustments to the indices.
The index series brings a number of features that were previously unavailable in the passive investment real estate index landscape, informed largely by APG’s mission to create real estate index series comprising companies with less exposure to ESG risk and fitting particular sustainability criteria, like those outlined by SFDR Article 8 and various sustainability frameworks such as the Global ESG Benchmark for Real Assets, the Carbon Risk Real Estate Monitor Project, the Sustainable Development Goals, and APG’s proprietary Controversy Screening.
Notes to Editor
To generate its dataset, RepRisk combines AI and advanced machine learning with human intelligence to identify material ESG risks on companies, real assets, and countries. RepRisk intentionally excludes company self-disclosures to provide independent and transparent insights into a company’s ESG and business conduct risks. RepRisk takes an outside-in approach by looking at a broad range of public media and stakeholder sources in ##autolanguages## languages to identify ESG risks – with daily data updates across ##autoesgFactors## ESG risk factors and mapped to standards such as UNGC, SASB, and the SDGs.
About RepRisk
Founded in 1998 and headquartered in Switzerland, RepRisk is a global technology company that provides transparency on business conduct risks like deforestation, human rights abuses, and corruption. RepRisk enables efficient decision-making for clients and supports alpha generation and value preservation for their organization, investments, and business interests. RepRisk is trusted by 80+ of the world’s leading banks, 17 of the 25 largest investment managers, corporates, and the world’s largest sovereign wealth funds for their due diligence processes. RepRisk uses human curation and cutting-edge artificial intelligence to generate the world’s most comprehensive business conduct and biodiversity risk datasets on public and private companies, real assets, and countries.
Visit us at www.reprisk.com.
