Rapport om samfundsansvar 2022 godkendt 7. marts 2023 (eng) ny - Flipbook - Side 6
INDUSTRIENS PENSIONSFORSIKRING A/S
therefore added to the list of excluded
companies.
The US e-commerce company Amazon was also
excluded from our investment universe in 2022
as a consequence of labour rights issues in the
company. The company has been involved in
cases of poor working conditions, obstructing
employees' right to organise in a union and lack
of transparency regarding employee rights. Via
our cooperation partner Federated Hermes
EOS, we have been in dialogue with Amazon
about the situation for a number of years, but not
enough progress has been made for Amazon to
meet our labour rights requirements.
INVESTMENT IN A SUSTAINABLE FUTURE
Responsible tax behaviour
Fair tax is an important parameter when
investing, especially when investments are
across national borders. It is crucial for us that
the tax structures and methods used ensure fair
tax payments.
invest. In 2018, Industriens Pension joined forces
with three other Danish pension companies to
draw up a tax code of conduct for private equity
investments. Another 13 pension companies and
large commercial foundations have endorsed
the code of conduct since it was drawn up.
Industriens Pension disapproves of aggressive
tax planning and tax evasion, including any
attempts at, and involvement in money
laundering, and expects the same of all its
cooperation partners.
The code of conduct forms the basis for us to
systematically ensure that members' funds are
not invested in aggressive tax structures that
may be used to reduce tax payments to a level
that is not in line with responsible tax behaviour.
Over the past years, Industriens Pension has
gradually increased its focus on fair tax payment
and tax structures in the companies in which we
Ensuring that all unlisted investments meet our
tax code of conduct continued as a central task
in 2022, and internal procedures and routines
have been established to ensure responsible
investments in unlisted assets from a tax
perspective.
Today, Industriens Pension places considerable
demands on managers offering investments,
including that they comply with the tax principles
established. If this is not the case, Industriens
Pension will not make the investment.
The companies adopting the code of conduct
have committed themselves to regularly
checking compliance with the code of conduct
by their investment managers. Therefore,
Industriens Pension has started making random
checks on investment managers' compliance
with agreements related to ESG and tax. This
requires updated information from the funds,
who are generally willing to respond to inquiries
from Industriens Pension. The random checks
show that almost all companies have been able
to document compliance with the guidelines.
Difficult decisions when investing in other
countries
Some of our efforts to invest in sustainable
development are also through our investments
in government bonds in developing countries
that help finance progress in these countries.
We want to invest in developing countries
because such investment contributes to a good
return and because we want to support
economic growth in less developed countries. It
is much more difficult to exercise active
ownership in relation to states, and the choice is
therefore between investing or not investing.
Dilemmas often arise because, in some cases,
state financing can be applied in economic
development to benefit the country's
population, while in other cases it can be used
to oppress the population and to violate human
rights. We use a so-called ESG score for
countries to decide possible exclusion. The
score contains numerous parameters that take
into account principles such as respect for
human rights, anti-corruption, bribery, climate
considerations as well as efficient and stable
governance. We exclude all countries with a
score under 25 on a scale from 1 to 100.
Unfortunately, there are violations of human
rights in many countries, and excluding
investments in states will always be a relative
consideration of which country is "worse".
We also exclude countries covered by sanctions
adopted by the UN or the EU and acceded to by
Denmark. In 2022, 22 countries were excluded
on this basis. From 2023, we have also decided
to exclude corporate bonds in the excluded
countries, as the state in such countries often
has significant influence on the country's
business community.
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