U Ethical Australian Equities Trust (Retail)

Product Name	U Ethical Australian Equities Trust (Retail)
Issuer	U Ethical
Category	Investment
Type	Fund or Trust
Target	Retail
Certified Since	2004

Asset Classes	Australian only equities
Markets	Australia
Investment Approaches	Negative Screening, Positive Screening
It Includes:	Education Green property Healthcare and medical products Impact investments Renewable energy and energy efficiency Social and sustainable infrastructure Sustainable land and agricultural management Sustainable transport Sustainable water More sustainable companies
It has some level of screening for:	Fossil fuels
It fully excludes:	Alcohol Animal cruelty Armaments Gambling Human rights abuses Labour rights violations Logging Nuclear power Pornography Tobacco
Broker	Responsible Returns
URL	https://www.responsiblereturns.com.au/investment-options/u-ethical-australian-equities-trust-retail/profile

Overview

The U Ethical Australian Equities Trust aims to provide moderate tax effective income and long term capital growth by investing in listed Australian equities according to socially responsible and ethical principles. It gains its exposure to cash and fixed interest securities by investing in the U Ethical Enhanced Cash Portfolio.

Description

We ensure that all investment decisions are in keeping with our vision and that they promote careful financial stewardship. This is achieved through the application of positive and negative screens, and engagement with companies, together with a focus on competitive economic returns and sustainability.

The Ethical Investment Policy contains a negative screen which restricts investment in securities with a material exposure to the following excluded activities: armaments, uranium, gambling, animal cruelty, alcohol production, tobacco manufacturing, pornography, thermal coal mining and export, and non-conventional oil and gas extraction. We do apply a 5% threshold, where we will consider investing in a company if the excluded activity amounts to less than 5% of revenue and we feel the positive aspects of the company outweigh the negative.

U Ethical Funds Management will also not invest in companies whose products, services and practices cause or perpetuate injustice and suffering, infringe human rights, cause unacceptable damage to the natural environment, have unacceptable environmental management practices, support oppressive regimes, or have unacceptable occupational health and safety practices.

The Positive Screen applied ensures that at least 10% of the fund is directed towards activities which have a positive effect on either society or the environment. This includes: clean energy, sustainable agriculture, recycling, employment, health care, education and community services.

The U Ethical Enhanced Cash Portfolio in which the Trust is invested, aims to invest directly in a balanced mix of cash and cashable securities, fixed interest securities (including hybrid securities, debentures, corporate bonds and mortgage backed securities), commercial mortgages and community impact loans.

Performance results

Product holdings

Product documentation

Supporting documents

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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.

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.

U Ethical Australian Equities Trust (Retail)

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