State Street Global Advisors to Lower Carbon Footprint of Pensioenfonds Horeca & Catering Portfolio by 70 Percent

State Street Global Advisors to Lower Carbon Footprint of Pensioenfonds Horeca & Catering Portfolio by 70 Percent

February 1, 2019

ESG-investing Pensionfunds
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State Street Global Advisors, the asset management arm of State Street Corporation (NYSE: STT), announced today that it has been appointed by Pensioenfonds Horeca & Catering, to lower the carbon emission profile of € 1.5 billion of its assets by 70 percent through an equity index strategy.

Pensioenfonds Horeca & Catering, the €9.9 billion fund for the hospitality and catering industry in the Netherlands, has been a client since 2008 when State Street Global Advisors started to manage a developed markets equity index mandate. The firm will now apply a carbon reduction target to this mandate to help Pensioenfonds Horeca & Catering achieve its 20 percent carbon emission reduction target set for the overall fund by 2020.

“Low carbon portfolios are becoming more common, especially in Northern Europe,” said Gerben Lagerwaard, head of Institutional for Benelux at State Street Global Advisors. “As a UNPRI signatory, we are delighted that more asset owners and managers are developing thoughtful approaches to the complex Environmental, Social and Governance drivers of risk and return. The industry has developed from its starting point of the exclusionary policies of the 1970s to proactively managing ESG factors; climate change is a primary example of those factors.”

“We recently established a new sustainable investment policy in which we will focus on two of the UN Sustainable Development Goals: Responsible Production and Consumption and Climate Action,” said Bas van Ooijen, senior investment manager at Pensioenfonds Horeca & Catering. “The fund translated its vision towards sustainability into a number of concrete objectives. One of these objectives is to reduce carbon emissions for the overall investment portfolio with 20 per cent by 2020.

“We have been working closely with State Street Global Advisors for many years and are confident that by adding this explicit carbon reduction target we are able to improve the sustainability of our investments and meet our risk and return objectives. Reducing the carbon footprint within this equity index mandate is an important step towards reaching our sustainability targets,” he added.

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