AEGON offers specific Socially Responsible Investment funds to its clients in the United Kingdom, the Netherlands and Hungary. These funds screen companies for the impact they have on the environment and on society as a whole.
AEGON’s SRI funds also focus on ‘positive screening’ – investing in companies that, in individual sectors, offer the best sustainability records:
| Country |
Fund |
Description |
| United Kingdom |
Ethical Cautious Managed
Ethical Corporate Bonds
Ethical Equity Fund |
Covers UK equities and corporate bonds. Investment is restricted in accordance with the fund’s “dark-green” investment criteria 1.
Covers higher quality sterling corporate bonds. Applies “dark-green” investment criteria.
Covers UK equities, with bias toward small and mid cap stocks. Applies “dark-green” investment criteria. |
| Netherlands |
AEGON Duurzaam Aandelenfonds
(AEGON Sustainable Shares Fund in English)
AEGON Sustainable World Equity Fund |
Covers global equities, applying range of sustainability criteria. Uses Dow Jones Sustainability Index as benchmark, excluding following sectors: alcohol, tobacco, gambling, armaments and firearms.
Covers global equities, applying range of sustainability criteria. Uses Dow Jones Sustainability Index as benchmark, excluding following sectors: alcohol, tobacco, gambling, armaments and firearms. |
| Hungary |
AEGON Climate Change Fund |
Covers equities in the developed world. Investments restricted to companies benefiting from climate change, including those involved in clean technologies, alternative energy, environmental management and agri-business. |
In addition to funds in the United Kingdom, the Netherlands and Hungary, AEGON’s asset management joint venture in China, AEGON Industrial Fund Management Company also operates a successful SRI fund based on positive screening. Most SRI assets in both the United Kingdom and the Netherlands are managed on behalf of policyholders. AEGON offers advice to its customers about their investments in SRI funds, but decisions on where and how much to invest are the responsibility of the customer alone. At the end of 2010, assets under management in AEGON’s SRI funds in the United Kingdom, the Netherlands and Hungary totaled just over EUR 1.22 billion, up 30% from EUR 940 million the year before and equivalent to 0.3% of the company’s total revenue-generating investments. The increase during the year was due primarily to net inflows in both the United Kingdom and the Netherlands.
In addition, assets under management in AEGON’s Industrial Fund Management Company’s, SRI fund in China totaled more than RMB 6.9 billion at the end of 2010, equivalent to just over EUR 780 million.