Sustainability conscious policy

SPF invests pension assets for a sound pension. SPF continuously balances achieving returns with taking responsible risks. Sustainability is also a key consideration in SPF's decision-making. The board has formulated several sustainability themes. For example, SPF is committed to a just world. This means, for example, that SPF ensures as much as possible that human and labor rights are respected and that corruption is countered. And SPF is committed to the climate. A key theme for SPF is circularity.

Refining the country policy with a focus on human rights, labour rights and anti-corruption
That’s why SPF has further refined its country policy with respect to sovereign bonds.  From now on, SPF will also exclude sovereign bonds from countries that, according to the Freedom House, International Trade Union Confederation and Transparency International rankings, are among the most serious violators of human rights, labour rights and anti-corruption regulations. Until now, SPF only excluded countries that violate international treaties or that fall under UN, EU or Dutch sanctions. This tightening means that SPF now excludes ten extra countries.

In doing so, SPF is underlining its commitment to a fair world and demonstrating that investments should also be ethically responsible, while ensuring both financial and social returns.

Circularity: a promising challenge 
Circularity is another important topic within the SPF sustainability policy and involves the smart handling of raw materials: reusing them as far as possible and minimising waste. This fits in well with both our members’ wishes as a member survey from 2022 revealed and with SABIC’s sustainability ambitions.

SPF has investigated how to incorporate circularity into its investment policy, which has thus far proven rather complex because there is no reliable and consistent data available to measure how circular companies actually are. Moreover, there are no widely accepted standards that clarify exactly what ‘circular’ means. This makes it challenging for SPF to formulate clear-cut investment criteria and identify actual investment opportunities that contribute demonstrably to a circular economy.

Nevertheless, SPF is actively continuing its search for responsible and feasible ways to integrate circularity in its investment approach, with a particular focus on clean water and sanitation (SDG 6) and responsible consumption and production (SDG 12).

How will these changes affect me?
Neither of the changes will have any direct impact on your pension.

The change to the country policy only has a limited impact on the total investment portfolio. And we are currently unable to incorporate our circularity policy within the investment portfolio.
SPF will continue to invest for a good pension in a liveable world, taking into account the wishes and preferences of all SPF members.