Definitions: ESG vs sustainability

ESG stands for environment, social and governance. ESG factors form the foundation for the various sustainable investment approaches used by PostFinance. During the assessment of ESG factors, attempts are made to evaluate the extent to which companies or states have environmental and social risks under control. In other words, the focus is on the company/state and how resilient and well prepared it is. The term “sustainability” refers to the impact of companies/states on the environment or society, i.e. whether the products and services have a positive or negative impact on the environment or society. The majority of external ratings focus on the ESG angle, but very few look at sustainability.

Sustainability-related investment with funds

PostFinance ESG-funds

The five investment strategy funds differ in terms of their equity and fixed income components, but all meet ESG (environment, social and governance) sustainability requirements. The best-in-class approach is used. With this best-in-class approach, the investment universe consists of the companies that are the best within their industry at keeping environmental, social and governance risks under control. In addition to providing a better overall ESG value, our funds also aim to achieve a lower carbon footprint – and in both cases, this is compared to the traditional benchmark index, which is not explicitly sustainable and does not take ESG indicators into account.

Third-party funds

PostFinance provides third-party funds that take account of sustainability or ESG aspects. In doing so, we indicate which funds pursue an explicit sustainability goal and which funds factor ESG aspects into their investment decision and consider good corporate governance (this classification is defined by the fund management companies that issue the third-party funds).

How it works exactly: sustainability- or ESG-related investments with our solutions

PostFinance provides five investment solutions, allowing customers to choose whether to delegate asset management to PostFinance, to decide on the level of advice they’d like to receive or whether to invest independently. With every investment solution, customers have investment options that take sustainability or ESG aspects into account.

Sustainability-related retirement planning

Our ESG retirement funds

PostFinance offers four retirement funds in which you can invest retirement capital from your retirement savings account 3a or vested benefits account. The funds differ in terms of their equity and fixed income components, but all take account of ESG (environment, social and governance) sustainability criteria. The best-in-class approach is also used here. The fund’s investable universe is reduced as a result, but no sectors are excluded. Compared to the traditional benchmark index, which is not explicitly sustainable, our retirement funds aim to provide a better ESG value and a lower carbon footprint.

Our criteria

PostFinance carries out rigorous checks on its investments

PostFinance places great emphasis on finding responsible ways to invest the customer deposits entrusted to its savings and investment accounts. Specifically, PostFinance is guided by the exclusion criteria used for the Norwegian sovereign wealth fund when investing its customer deposits. In other words, companies such as those that produce coal or support unethical business practices with their products are excluded from the investment universe.

However, there are currently no companies from the oil and gas sector on the exclusion list. The revenues from this sector are an important source of earnings for the Norwegian sovereign wealth fund and constitute a latent conflict of interest in the assessment of oil and gas companies. For this reason, PostFinance also takes into account the ESG ratings  ESG stands for Environment, Social and Governance. Information is collected on social aspects, environmental protection and governance. These criteria can be used to either select or exclude securities for an investment portfolio. from the independent ESG rating agency ISS ESG in this sector and excludes the most environmentally damaging companies from investments. The exclusion criteria are thus even stricter than the Norwegian sovereign wealth fund.