Partner
The Sustainable Development Investments Asset Owner Platform (SDI AOP) and Qontigo, its exclusive distribution partner, have announced that asset manager NN Investment Partners (NN IP) has subscribed to the SDI AOP dataset, which allows users to enhance their investment decision making with data on the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). This data set supports NN IP’s commitment to continuously enhance its ESG data and analytics models, using both internal and external sources.
NN IP will initially use the data to feed into their proprietary frameworks and models to identify companies that are considered sustainable investments in the context of the Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation (SFDR) requirements. In the future, the asset manager plans to expand on its existing client reporting capabilities using the data to optimize reporting on SDG exposures on its strategies.
“We believe in helping our clients achieve both their financial and sustainable objectives and continually look for new data sources to enrich our investment decision making,” said Arnoud Diemers, Head of the Responsible Investing & Innovation Platform at NN Investment Partners. “We did extensive due diligence on global SDG data sets, and ultimately, we concluded that the SDI AOP provides the most credible and meaningful output thanks to the transparency of their methodology, the fact that it’s been developed specifically for the purpose of SDG alignment and finally, the innovative approach combining both machine learning and human validation.”
The SDI AOP platform was founded in 2020 by APG, AustralianSuper, British Colombia Investment Management and PGGM to advance the standard for investing into the SDGs. These asset owners make up the Design Authority, tasked with defining the taxonomy, rules and classifications which are then translated by technology partner Entis through unstructured and structured data. Index and analytics provider Qontigo acts as the sales and marketing arm for the data, which contains approximately 8,700 companies that are classified as Majority, Decisive or Non-SDI-based on the positive SDG contributions of the products and services.
“NN IP share our philosophy that having a credible approach to aligning with the SDGs creates investment opportunities,” said James Leaton, Research Director, SDI AOP. “We’re excited to have NN IP join our growing community and we look forward to collaborating to further develop the dataset.”
NN IP have been reporting on SDG exposure and impact for the last several years and offer a range of investment solutions that help clients meet their responsible investment objectives, a number of which have specific SDG focus areas. However, the asset manager sees increasing demand not only to directly invest in solutions that tackle one or more SDGs but also to optimize reporting on the positive impact of a client’s portfolio.
About SDI Asset Owner Platform
The Sustainable Development Investments Asset Owner Platform (SDI AOP) is responsible for the development and maintenance of the SDI taxonomy and guidance, SDI definitions and SDI classification methodology (www.sdi-aop.org). The SDI AOP consists of asset owners who invest in solutions which contribute to the UN Sustainable Development Goals. The SDI AOP uses revenues associated with a company’s products and services as starting points to classify which companies qualify as SDI.
The SDI AOP is comprised of APG, AustralianSuper, British Columbia Investment Management Corporation and PGGM. Its underlying data are available to the market through analytics and index provider Qontigo and can be integrated into any investment process.
