RI Interview: Joanne Kellermann (PFZW) and Piet Klop (PGGM) on sustainable investing

Joanne Kellermann, Chair of Pensioenfonds Zorg & Welzijn (PFZW), Netherlands second-largest pension fund, says it acts on the belief that “for a good life in old age you need more than money alone; you also need a livable planet and environment”. 

Kellermann, who was speaking this week at RI Netherlands 2021, stressed that the €255bn pension fund was not “an NGO or an activist”, but it “believed while making money, it could also reduce its negative impact and increase its positive impact on the world”. 

PFZW, and its asset manager PGGM (spun-out by PFZW in 2008), have been prominent leaders in ESG, sustainability and - more recently - impact investing; and the fund has been typically open about the challenges of providing inflation-protected pensions while contributing to a more sustainable world. 

PGGM is leading the conversation on impact through a partnership with APG, the asset manager of ABP - the Netherlands’ largest pension scheme - called Sustainable Development Investments (SDIs) Asset Owner Platform initiative. SDI uses artificial intelligence to filter through 10,000 companies, effectively translating the UN Sustainable Development Goals into a taxonomy of investable opportunities. SDI sells data on individual companies and publishes a taxonomy of solutions for each SDG for free. 

Australian Super and Canada’s British Columbia Investment Management Corporation have since joined the initiative, investing money into the product and also converging with PGGM and APG on their approach to impact measurement. 

Piet Klop, Senior Advisor Responsible Investment at PGGM, describes SDI as “an attempt to bring method to the madness and be more accountable” as an impact manager. It analyses company revenues to gauge the depth of contribution to individual SDGs and seeks to analyse future positioning to those SDGs.

 

Read the whole interview here.