Alvoso has affiliated itself to the Swiss Ethos Foundation and joined the Ethos Engagement Pool Switzerland

Alvoso makes its investments more sustainable

The primary objective of occupational pensions is to allow insured persons and/or survivors to maintain their accustomed standard of living (together with AHV/IV) in an appropriate manner in the event of old age, disability or death (Art. 1 BVG). Even against the background of social change in recent years towards a generally more sustainable (often referred to as “greener”) investment policy among pension institutions, the Board of Trustees, as the highest responsible body, must not lose sight of this objective.

Since 2016, the Alvoso Pension Fund Board of Trustees has been informed by the respective asset managers about investment sustainability. The share of sustainable investments increased continuously through to 2019. Following a break for the new corporate identity and new direction of the foundation, several steps towards more sustainable investment have been taken over the past few months.

Sustainability, also known as ESG, has many facets. In the context of investment activities, this includes, for example, the prevention of environmental damage by investing in ecologically active companies (environmental aspect), monitoring compliance with laws (governance aspect) or taking account of contemporary working conditions (social aspect).

Committing to responsibility

One possible form of positively influencing companies is engagement. To this end, pension institutions merge into organisations to jointly exert positive influence. For example, Alvoso has affiliated itself to the Swiss Ethos Foundation and joined the Ethos Engagement Pool Switzerland.

Responsible investing

In addition to commitment, Alvoso has reviewed the role of ESG criteria in selecting investment instruments. It came to the conclusion that ESG indices have outperformed their conventional counterparts in recent years, particularly with regard to foreign investments. For this reason, Alvoso switched to ESG benchmark indices and products in the categories of global equities and global corporate bonds in the first quarter of 2022 after already investing in the emerging market equities category in accordance with ESG requirements. Following this conversion, the Alvoso Pension Fund investment universe now has an ESG share of over 90%.

Responsible monitoring

Conversion in itself is not enough for Alvoso. Over the coming months and years, the conversion will be monitored on an ongoing basis. After all, the primary objective is and will remain to generate an adequate long-term return. This is a practical implementation of sustainability for our beneficiaries.