Responsible Investment
As one of the world's largest real asset managers, we believe we have a unique role to play in improving the environmental and social impact of real assets
3 areas of focus to enhance and protect asset value
We align our approach with broader global action, including the UN sustainable development goals, focusing on three areas to achieve our ESG objectives:
Increasingly, we collect and analyse environmental, social and governance data as part of our due diligence for acquisitions, and to track, benchmark and report on the ESG impact and performance of our assets under management.
- Direct real estate: Our automated ESG tool collects and analyses energy, water and waste data for each asset in scope. We use it to create an ESG footprint that enables us to track Key Performance Indicators (KPI) including CO2 emissions, and an ESG rating to benchmark asset performance and identify areas of improvement.
- Commercial Real Estate (CRE) debt assets: We evaluate the ESG profile of underlying assets and loan sponsors and calculate ESG ratings for each loan in scope.
- Infrastructure debt assets: Our ESG evaluation takes into account criteria based on project sector, social utility, environmental impact and the ESG commitments of shareholding companies. We use this to calculate ESG ratings for each loan.
We assess the materiality of each asset’s underlying risk to inform the development of asset-specific resilience and adaptation plans.
We take action to protect our clients’ investment and identify new opportunities.
- We develop ESG action plans to improve the environmental and social impact of direct real estate AUM
- We certify assets to recognised sustainability labels (BREEAM, LEED, HQE).
- We are developing climate adaptation plans for assets identified as at risk, using a proprietary climate risk methodology
We provide investors with reporting that tracks progress on various metrics:
- Specific resource use and emissions KPIs
- ESG footprints for direct real estate assets
- Certification labels for direct real estate assets at asset and country level, and for AXA IM – Real Assets as a whole
- ESG ratings for both equity and debt assets
Our vision and strategy
At AXA IM – Real Assets, the volume of assets we manage and data we collect on the one hand, and our interaction with a wide range of investors on the other, give us the potential to act as changemakers. This is a role we are more than glad to play. Using our data, we aim to engage with each of our investors, to understand their aspirations and, ultimately, increase the ESG performance of our assets under management.
As one of the world’s largest insurers, AXA’s day-to-day business puts it on the frontline of climate change. We strongly share this conviction and seek to both reduce the environmental impact of the assets we manage, and protect their value from climate change risks.