Sustainable and Responsible Investment

At Fortis, sustainable and responsible investment (SRI) means generating both financial and sustainable value. We offer our clients products that satisfy their goal of achieving healthy investment returns and their desire to contribute to a better world. We invest in companies that create value by providing solutions to key environmental and social challenges.

We offer a range of specialist SRI products for both institutional and retail investors through Fortis Investments, our asset manager, and Fortis MeesPierson, our private bank in the Netherlands.

Fortis Investments aims to be a leading provider of sustain­able investment solutions for European retail and institutional clients. It established a dedicated SRI investment centre in Frankfurt that launched a broad range of SRI products. Examples are the FLF Bond SRI Euro, investing in bonds from countries that can demonstrate high sustainability standards, and the FLF Equity Environment Sustainability World that invests in companies whose products help to solve global environmental problems relating to climate change, waste and water pollution.

Fortis Investments launched a new and innovative approach to quantifying environmental benefits in the management of environmental sustainability funds. The new approach was jointly developed by Fortis Investments and Trucost. It builds on the increasing recognition that investors regard environmental impacts as costs. The new approach was launched in tandem with an innovative environmental footprint calculator that helps people understand the impact their daily lives have on the environment. The invites individuals and households to calculate their environmental footprint online via a series of questions about their daily consumption patterns. They can then reduce their footprint by adopting recommended lifestyle changes, with the option of counteracting any residual footprint by investing in the fund.

For more information about Fortis Investments’ SRI approach and an overview of the products we offer, please refer to .

Fortis MeesPierson, our private bank in the Netherlands, caters to the growing demand for responsible investment too. In 2005 it teamed up with Triodos Bank to create Triodos MeesPierson Sustainable Investment Management. This joint venture offers high-quality sustainable asset management services to the clients of both parent companies. Triodos MeesPierson marries Fortis MeesPierson’s experience in sustainable asset management with Triodos’s expertise in sustainability. Research is carried out by Dutch Sustainability Research (DSR), a joint venture of Triodos Bank, pension fund PGGM and Fortis MeesPierson. Financial research and strategy are sourced from the private bank’s global investment process.