Achmea

Achmea performs well in several areas, particularly governance, stewardship and lobbying. In terms of governance, it assigns decision-making and oversight for sustainability strategy to the highest governance body and responsibility for implementation to functions, teams or committees. It also incentivizes performance criteria for senior executive remuneration to sustainability targets and maintain a gender balance of 40-60% at the senior executive level. Stewardship-wise, Achmea has a comprehensive stewardship policy that support environmental transitions and social best practices in line with its sustainability strategy. Not only does the policy cover client and other stakeholder engagement as well as advocacy and partnerships, but it also includes criteria for what is considered a successful stewardship result, escalation routes if unsuccessful and defines when escalations should happen. Additionally, it transparently identifies the key sectors, clients and investees to engage with on climate issues. It also engages with these clients and investees to influence and support them to set strategies for nature-protection and restoration and partnerships to influence and support sectors, clients and investees to act on their nature-related impacts. It particularly demonstrates leading practice in lobbying, where it not only discloses its approach to lobbying and political engagement in a policy statement, but it also requires third-party lobbyists to comply with its lobbying and political engagement policy. Moreover, it identifies bribery, and corruption risks and specifies that it does not make political contributions. Achmea also describes the process(es) used to identify the specific human rights risks and impacts associated with its provision of products, services and capital.

It is also noteworthy that Achmea demonstrates transparency in its disclosure of selected financing activities, environmental and operational data. For instance, it discloses an example of how its products, services and capital supports the climate adaptation and resilience of society, as well as the amount and/or share (in monetary terms) of its provision of products, services and capital linked to high-emitting sectors and fossil fuel sectors. It also monitors the emissions resulting from its associated financing activities (Scope 3 category 15) and its operation by country (e.g. by number of employees or revenue).

There are several areas where Achmea has scope for improvement, such as its disclosure relating to its impact materiality strategy, targets and plan, operational carbon footprint, risk assessment processes associated with the ILO fundamental rights at work and its just transition risk mitigation processes. While it identifies material sustainability impacts across its value chain, further detail on the process and criteria for prioritisation is needed. It is also recommended for Achmea to specify if its material impact targets are included as part of its third-party verification processes. In terms of its organisational carbon footprint, it has an opportunity to specify if its Scope 2 emissions are location-based or market-based, as well as disclose its Scope 3 emissions by categories.

It is also recommended that Achmea discloses its risk assessment process includes risks associated with the ILO fundamental rights at work for those impacted by its provision of products, services and capital, its process for mitigating such risks when identified, as well as provide an example of the specific conclusions reached and actions taken or to be taken on at least one of its salient human rights issues of it’s the products, services and capital it offers as a result of assessment processes in at least one of its activities in the last three years. While Achmea expects its suppliers to respect specific workers’ rights, it has an opportunity to reference all the ILO fundamental rights at work. It could also consider disclosing how it determines a living wage for the regions where it operates.

There is also an opportunity for Achmea to enhance its disclosures on its provision of resources to low and lower-middle income countries. For instance. it could consider disclosing the breakdown of clients and/or beneficiaries by income group, as well as its processes for avoiding divestment from low-income and lower-middle countries as unintended consequences of its sustainability strategies and targets. Lastly, while Achmea generally performs well in lobbying-related disclosure, it could further improve its performance in this area by specifying if it includes anti-bribery and anti-corruption clauses specifically in its contracts with business relationships.

This scorecard refers to information in English which was publicly available by July 15 2024. AuM and Total assets are stated in USD for comparability and have been calculated based on reported local currency values multiplied by applicable IMF currency converter values.