Socially responsible investments

Find out what criteria determine whether an investment is socially responsible and see if this option suits you.

UniSuper's socially responsible investment options give you the opportunity to direct your superannuation investment toward companies with socially responsible practices. You now have access to two dedicated options: Socially Responsible Balanced and Socially Responsible High Growth.

Each of our socially responsible investment options have been certified by the Responsible Investment Association Australasia.

Selecting socially responsible investments

UniSuper have appointed three external fund managers to oversee our socially responsible investment options:

• Socially Responsible Balanced is managed by AMP Capital Investors.
• Socially Responsible High Growth is managed by AMP Capital Investors, BT Financial Group and Dexia.

Their assessments generally take three sustainability criteria into account:

Environmental assessment

• strategy analysis
• management analysis
• operation and product analysis, and
• stakeholder management.

Social assessment

• workplace management
• human rights and business ethics, and
• community development.

Economic/financial assessment

• Qualitative assessment (eg. level of competition and quality of management)
• Quantitative assessment (eg. growth prospects, earning forecasts and return on equity), and
• Fundamental quality of underlying business.

Fund managers employ specialist teams to research, evaluate and rate how well the companies perform in each of the three categories.

The investment managers used by UniSuper for the Socially Responsible High Growth option and the Socially Responsible Balanced option also take some of the following global guidelines into account when setting the standards for which companies to include:

• the Social Accountability 8000 standard (which measures health and safety, child labour, forced labour, trade union rights, pay and work hours) and International Labour Organization core labour standards
• the ISO 14001 environmental management standard and CERES principles for environmental awareness and accountability
• UN Global Compact & OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises for corporate practices
• Global Reporting Initiatives for sustainability reporting, and
• World Business Council for Sustainable Development.

UniSuper's socially responsible investment products

Socially Responsible Balanced option

This option invests in a mix of growth and defensive assets. Investment managers apply a best-of-sector approach as well as some positive screens to identify and invest in companies that will form part of a socially and environmentally sustainable future.

Currently, the socially responsible investment approach applies to the Australian and international shares, alternative investments and Australian fixed interest components of the option. For direct property investments, environmental considerations are taken into account. However, environmental, social and ethical considerations, labour standards and corporate governance factors are not taken into account in respect of any other asset classes.

A negative screen is applied to companies that receive more than 10% of their total revenue from the production of alcohol, armaments, gambling, pornography, tobacco and uranium.

Socially Responsible High Growth option

This option is a higher risk investment option because it invests solely in growth assets and uses fewer investment managers than other options do. This means that it is less diversified.

The managers select and retain shares in companies that rate higher on sustainability criteria relative to other companies in the same industry sector.

The advantage of this best-of-sector approach is that it does not limit investment to a narrow range of industries. It also aims to encourage companies to improve their sustainability practices if they want to be considered for investment

Within this option, a negative screen has been placed on overseas tobacco stocks.

Certified by the Responsible Investment Association Australasia

UniSuper has been certified by RIAA according to the strict disclosure practices required under the Responsible Investment Certification Program. The Certification Symbol signified that an investment product or service takes environmental, social, ethical or governance considerations into account along with financial returns. See www.responsibleinvestment.org for details.