Sustainability framework
At Athora, we take an integrated approach to embedding Sustainability in all our activities. We have developed our Sustainability strategy framework (as illustrated below) to emphasise the importance and scale of the Sustainability topic. The core of our Sustainability strategy focuses on key impact areas at the intersection of our business activities and our defined Sustainability themes. These impact areas are guided by our Sustainability vision and principles, and supported by appropriate monitoring, metrics & disclosures and governance.
Our Sustainability vision: We aim to ensure that our work genuinely generates value for all our investors, and enables our customers, employees, community and planet to thrive, without compromising the means of future generations.
Read our Sustainability Report 2021 for more details on our 2021 Sustainability activities.
Our Sustainability themes
Given the breadth of the Sustainability topic, we have selected three Sustainability focus themes for our organisation based on our industry role, strengths and values:
Promoting economic wellbeing over the long term
We provide economic wellbeing to our insurance customers over the long term and we are well positioned to broaden on our role in this area to increase our impact – by engaging with our communities and promote financial literacy.
Protecting life and nature
We recognise our shared responsibility to look after our nature, including life on land and life below water – from our own footprint to how we contribute to and invest in initiatives aimed at protecting, conserving, and restoring our environment.
Facilitating fair and good social outcomes
We are committed to facilitating good social outcomes, including fairness and equality within our organisation and in our society – from reviewing our own human resource processes and policies, to our investment in and contributions to broader initiatives.
Our role as an Insurer
As an insurer, we play an important role in the lives of our customers as we help take care of their future income provisions. We are committed to providing savings and retirement services, to support our customers and their loved ones in planning for a safer future and achieve financial comfort in their retirement. We do so whilst treating our customers fairly and acting in their best interest to enhance customer satisfaction.
| Attractive returns and security | Sustainable funds | Responsible Finance Club in Belgium |
| We are committed to offering long-term guaranteed products and aim to provide our customers with attractive returns and security. | Majority of our unit-linked funds offered to customers are labelled article 8 or article 9 in accordance with the Sustainable Finance Disclosures Regulation (SFDR). | Athora Belgium has launched the Responsible Finance Club to promote sustainable investment among insurance brokers and their clients. |
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Our role as an Employer
Our priority as an employer is to build a fair, diverse and inclusive culture, provide good career development opportunities for our colleagues and to look after their physical, mental and financial wellbeing. In order to achieve our objectives as an employer, we have developed a number of employee initiatives, including our Inclusion, Diversity & Equality Council, leadership programme and network, Smart Working framework and employee recognition initiatives.
| Our culture initiatives | Inclusion, Diversity & Equality (IDE) Council | Smart Working approach |
| We place great importance on our employees and culture, and have put in place initiatives to foster cultural change through collective ownership and collaborative leadership. | Our IDE council has been established to foster an inclusive, diverse and equal working environment which supports our values and engages our colleagues. | Our framework places emphasis on listening to the needs of our colleagues, and enabling them to tailor their work structure to be conducive to their working habits and lifestyle. |
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Our role as a Corporate citizen
We recognise the importance of leading by example with respect to environmental and social outcomes. To drive environmental outcomes, we look to measure and reduce our greenhouse gas emissions (Athora Netherlands has already committed to a path to net zero), protect life and nature, promote responsible production and consumption, and deliver a sustainable supply chain. To drive social outcomes, we employ responsible management of our own operations, robust governance structures, transparent performance reporting and contribution through our taxes and charitable initiatives.
| Contributing to our local communities | Sustainable supply chain | Transparent approach to tax |
| We are committed to making a difference in our communities, through financial donations, non-monetary donations and volunteering activities. | We make sure that our supply chain partners are aligned to our values and standards of service delivery and sustainability through our supplier vetting process. | We take a transparent approach to tax and act as a responsible taxpayer by ensuring the appropriate amount of tax is paid on our business and income. |
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Our role as an Investor
We embrace our role as a sustainable and responsible investor and leverage our business model and investment capabilities to enact real, long-lasting and positive change. We aim to align our investments toward companies and countries which realise opportunities to make meaningful contributions to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDGs), while operating within the planetary boundaries.
| Sustainable Investment framework | ESG Investment Risk scoring approach | VBDO benchmark in the Netherlands |
| We have established our Sustainable Investment framework based on four key pillars: Integration, Alignment, Engagement and Impact, to guide our investments towards positive impact. | Our ESG scoring approach assigns scores between 1 (low ESG risk) and 6 (high ESG risk) to each asset, with total portfolio exposure subject to defined limits, reflective of our risk appetite. | Athora Netherlands was named the most Sustainable insurer in the Netherlands by the Dutch Association of Investors for Sustainable Development (VBDO) benchmark on Responsible Investment. |
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