Mercer Socially Responsible Australian Shares Fund

Product Name	Mercer Socially Responsible Australian Shares Fund
Issuer	Mercer Investments (Australia) Limited
Category	Investment
Type	Fund or Trust
Target	Retail, Wholesale, Institutional
Certified Since	2018

Asset Classes	Australian only equities
Markets	Australia
Investment Approaches	ESG Integration, Negative Screening
It Includes:	Education Green property Healthcare and medical products Renewable energy and energy efficiency Social and sustainable infrastructure More sustainable companies
It has some level of screening for:	Alcohol Armaments Fossil fuels Gambling Pornography Tobacco
It fully excludes:
Broker	Responsible Returns
URL	https://www.responsiblereturns.com.au/investment-options/mercer-socially-responsible-australian-shares-fund/profile

Overview

The Mercer Socially Responsible Australian Shares Fund provides exposure to Australian shares using a socially responsible and multi-manager approach. ESG considerations, including labour standards, climate change, principles of sustainable investment and good corporate governance are incorporated in the Fund’s investment decision making and ownership practices. The investment managers for this Fund must take into account the Fund’s total carbon intensity and Mercer’s commitment to sustainable investing and good corporate governance through ESG integration, proxy voting and engagement in their investment decision making process. Furthermore, the Fund will not invest in companies that meet certain exclusions criteria (more below).

Description

The Mercer Socially Responsible Australian Shares Fund employs ESG integration, active ownership, sustainability themes and screening strategies in its responsible investment approach. It includes all the foundations applied across all Mercer Funds, but is designed for those that want to invest according to an even wider set of ethical criteria and have a higher proportion of sustainability-themed assets.

1. ESG integration, the Mercer Socially Responsible Australian Shares Fund only appoints managers that meet Mercer's ESG Ratings criteria of ESG1 or ESG2 (with ESG1 being the highest rating and ESG4 being the lowest). The Fund is also designed to achieve a carbon intensity that is 20% below the carbon intensity of the benchmark as measured annually.
2. Active ownership, Mercer's Sustainable Investment Manager runs a dedicated direct company engagement program with the top twenty Australian holdings, over and above the engagement managers are doing with companies, and the engagement we undertake with our managers and through collaborative initiatives.
3. Sustainability-themed exposures are higher in this Fund than Mercer's equivalent Australian Shares Fund with managers like Alphinity that are incorporating the Sustainable Development Goals as a direct input to their portfolio construction process.
4. Excluded investments include the following:

Tobacco - Companies involved in the manufacture and/or production of tobacco products (regardless of revenue), including subsidiaries and joint ventures, as well as any other company that derives 50% or more of revenue from other tobacco-related business activities such as packaging, distribution and retail of tobacco products.
Controversial weapons: Companies that manufacture whole weapons systems, or delivery platforms, or components that were developed or are significantly modified for exclusive use in cluster munitions, anti-personnel landmines, biological or chemical weapons, as well as companies involved in the production and retailing of automatic and semi-automatic civilian firearms.
Plus companies with a material exposure* to:
- Alcohol production
- Carbon intensive fossil fuels (defined as thermal coal and tar sands)
- Gambling
- Pornography

*Material exposure is defined as 5% of revenue or greater in the last financial year, with the exception of carbon intensive fossil fuels where material exposure is defined as 20% or more of a company's revenue in the last financial year.

Performance results

Product holdings

Product documentation

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

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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.

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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.

Mercer Socially Responsible Australian Shares Fund

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