Eurizon increasingly committed to sustainable investments

Eurizon – the Intesa Sanpaolo Group's asset management company specialising in the management of products and services for retail and institutional customers – has adopted a rigorous process of implementing the European Union's Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation(SFDR) on new disclosure and transparency requirements for financial market participants, which specifies how sustainability factors are to be integrated into investment decisions.

Currently, all of Eurizon's actively managed funds do not invest in issuers from sectors that are not considered "socially responsible".

At 30 June, Eurizon's total range numbered 155 funds classified under Articles 8 and 9 of the SFDR regulation - which therefore promote, among other things, environmental or social characteristics, or which have sustainable investment objectives - corresponding to almost 100 billion of assets, or 45% of the company's fund assets.

In the "Sustainability Policy" document, Eurizon illustrates how sustainability risks are integrated into the investment decision-making process, identifying specific methodologies for selecting and monitoring financial instruments that take into account sustainable and responsible investment (SRI) principles and environmental, social and governance (ESG) factors.

Eurizon was the first operator in Italy to set up ethical funds in 1996.

Subsequently, in 2014, it signed up to the Italian stewardship principles for the responsible exercise of administrative and voting rights in the companies in its investment portfolios.

The process of accountability in Eurizon's investment practices continued in 2015 with the signing of the United Nations "Principles for Responsible Investment" and in 2017 with the integration of ESG and SRI factors into the investment process.