A RESPONSIBLE MANAGEMENT

Seeyond's standard approach to the Responsible Investment involves the implementation of exclusionary policies and active ownership.

• On Equities:
  Seeyond refuses to support sectors or issuers fail to respect fundamental principles of corporate social responsibility. This is central to the credibility of its responsible approach and fiduciary duty to its clients.
  Consistently, Seeyond has implemented exclusion policies, which are applied on all its equity portfolios:

• Controversial weapons: exclusion of any companies involved in the production, use, storage, sale and transfer of anti-personnel mines and cluster bombs in accordance with the Ottawa convention and Oslo Treaty, to both of which France is a signatory.
• Blacklisted states: Seeyond does not invest in countries subject to US or EU embargo, mentioned on the EU list of non-cooperative jurisdictions for tax purposes or which have been identified by the Financial Action Task Force as having strategic AML/CFT deficiencies.
• Worst offenders*: exclusion of all companies, listed or unlisted, who fail to respect the principles of the UN Global Compact or the OECD's Guidelines for multinationals and have been publicly excluded by institutional investors based on these principles.
• Coal*: exclusion of issuers who earn more than 50% of revenue from coal mining or coal-fired power generation, exclusion of companies whose principal activity lies in the production, transport or sale of coal extracted by Mountain Top Removal methods.

• Other asset classes:
  In view of their specific features, the implementation of ESG criteria throughout Seeyond's active quantitative investment processes is currently being structured and is at different stages by asset classes. Aside from the exclusion of blacklisted countries when applicable, Seeyond does not take ESG criteria into account at this stage but work is under way on how they might be incorporated consistently to Seeyond’s quantitative investment approaches.

Seeyond has defined an Active Ownership policy that is consistent with its quantitative investment approaches on the one hand and its commitments as a signatory to the UN PRI on the other.
This policy comprises a Voting policy and collaborative engagement reflecting the company's ambition to help promote a better incorporation of ESG issues in companies’ practices.

To this end, Seeyond has chosen Institutional Shareholder Services (ISS), the world's leading provider of corporate governance and responsible investment (RI) solutions, and the recommendations of its Sustainability Voting policy as well as for its collaborative engagement policy.

Voting policy:

Seeyond exercises its voting rights at general meetings over a broad universe (approximately 1,500 shares) and by taking environmental, social and governance issues into consideration.
Seeyond's approach consists in exercising its voting right in order to favor better incorporation of ESG issues in companies' strategic thinking. Seeyond has chosen ISS and the recommendations of its Sustainability voting policy. This policy takes as its reference framework internationally recognized sustainable development initiatives.

Collaborative Engagement:

In order to reinforce Principle 5 of the UN PRI, Seeyond has chosen to complement its voting policy with a collaborative engagement approach. Through ISS' Collaborative Engagement service, Seeyond participates in initiatives selected based on the main international normative standards (OECD, ILO, UN Global Compact guidelines, etc.)