Devon Sustainability Fund

Product Name	Devon Sustainability Fund
Issuer	Devon Funds Management
Category	Investment
Type	Fund or Trust
Target	Retail, Wholesale
Certified Since	2022

Asset Classes	New Zealand only equities
Markets	New Zealand
Investment Approaches	Negative Screening, ESG Integration
It Includes:	Impact investments Renewable energy and energy efficiency More sustainable companies
It has some level of screening for:	Alcohol Fossil fuels Gambling Pornography
It fully excludes:	Armaments Human rights abuses Tobacco
Broker	Responsible Returns
URL	https://www.responsiblereturns.com.au/investment-options/devon-sustainability-fund/profile

Overview

The Fund will look to invest in those companies that score highly on overall environmental, social and corporate governance performance. The Fund also employs an ethical screen which will prohibit investment into certain companies and sectors. The Fund invests in a select portfolio of well researched New Zealand and Australian listed companies. The Fund is actively managed, which means the holdings and returns may differ considerably from its benchmark. While the Fund tends to be fully invested in shares, when there are few compelling investment opportunities the Fund may hold some cash or cash equivalent securities

Description

This Fund is a responsible Fund because it invests in companies score highly on overall environmental, social and corporate governance performance. The Fund also employs an ethical screen which will prohibit investment into certain companies and sectors. The list of exclusions are below;

Companies where more than 10% of business comes from:

- Alcohol manufacturing;

- Gambling;

- Pornography; and or processing.

- Fossil fuel exploration, extraction, refining

Full exclusion of companies deriving their business revenue from:

- Tobacco and manufacturing;

- Armaments;

- Whaling; and

- Any companies on human rights watch lists.

Further information and detail around thresholds for the Fund’s exclusions can be found in our Exclusions Policy on Page 10 of the RI Policy;

https://devonfunds.co.nz/sites/default/files/Devon%20Responsible%20Investment%20Policy.pdf

The investment objective of this Fund is that it aims to generate capital growth over the long term by actively managing your New Zealand and Australian equity investments. The Fund aims to achieve a 2% return in excess of the benchmark over a rolling three-year period. Through the above stated exclusions, as well as incorporating ESG factors, the Fund also aims to deliver 5% return above the MSCI ESG benchmark over a rolling three-year period.

Performance results

Product holdings

Product documentation

Supporting documents

Join or sign up for this product

Find a responsible investment adviser to discuss my options

Sign up to learn more and get updates on ethical and responsible investing

The products featured on this site have all achieved certification under the Responsible Investment Association Australasia’s (RIAA) Responsible Investment Certification Program.

Transparency & Verification

What sets these investment products aside from regular ones on the market is they all have some type of responsible or ethical strategy applied to them.

At a minimum, their issuers explain these strategies in public documents and open their offices and books to third party verifiers who check these strategies are implemented according to what you read about them publicly.

You can also click through to see the underlying managers and / or stock holdings in each certified product as well as access a certified product’s recent performance results.

Stewardship & Impact

In July 2019, we lifted our requirements of certified products which we are phasing in over 18 months.

We now require that issuers have organisation-wide commitments to responsible investing and they exercise their responsibilities as stewards of your money - through engaging with companies to improve sustainability performance and voting on shareholder resolutions where possible. All certified products now need to at least avoid significant harm and their issuers will annually report against any sustainability-based claims made by their products. This uplift in program standards is part of our passion for, and on-going commitment to, responsible and ethical investing.

Even though we're lifting the bar, we know your convictions to doing good with your money may be higher and so we have served up our member's certified products with a large dose of transparency and independent verification, so that you can draw your own conclusions from reliable information and choose investments that best suit your individual needs.

*Information Disclosures

While all reasonable efforts are undertaken to ensure information and links on site are current there may be instances where information and documents are updated during the course certification (eg. PDS, Fact Sheet). Certified product issuers are required to update this information as soon as possible on the Responsible Returns site, but there may be some extenuating circumstances impacting timeframes.

The certification program may also assess information provided for certification based on proposed future changes to a responsible investment process that is in-line with Responsible Investment Association Australasia’s (RIAA) Responsible Investment Certification Program criteria. In such instances, members are similarly required to update this information on Responsible Returns within an agreed future timeframe. Old document versions may be reflected on site until this process is finalised.