The key to successful investment is creating value. Experience shows that active portfolio management adds value to investments over the long term. We also believe that specialisation and focus are critical for truly successful management. As a result, we outsource part of the management activities. This creates room for developing further our own specialisation in responsible investment.

To ensure good financial performance, SNS Asset Management is convinced that we must create value for more stakeholders than just the providers of capital. This includes our staff, but also the environment. Companies earn their license to operate by remembering their financial and non-financial interests.

When we invest, we place specific demands on our investments. Our fundamental policy principles are:

• respect for basic human rights,
• no involvement in the most serious forms of child labour,
• abstaining from involvement in forced labour,
• abstaining from serious forms of corruption,
• abstaining from serious forms of environmental contamination,
• no involvement in the production of weapon systems of which the effects are disproportionate and that do not distinguish between military and civilian targets,
• respect for generally-accepted ethical principles that apply in a humane civilisation.

In addition to these fundamental principles, we also investigate companies' involvement in a range of social, ethical and environmental aspects. This supplementary research addresses our fundamental principles as well as a range of other topics.

The fundamental principles are derived from international treaties, guidelines or codes. They are not based on subjective preferences, but on broadly-accepted values in the global civilisation that are set down internationally in authoritative documents.

We recently translated the investment philosophy into a product that aims to answer the wishes of institutional investors: the SNS Responsible Index Fund - Equity Europe. This fund is an alternative to traditional index products. It invests only in companies that trade in accordance with our fundamental principles.


We also offer investment products that go beyond the basic philosophy in terms of social, ethical and environmental principles:

ASN Aandelenfonds (ASN Equity Fund)
The ASN Aandelenfonds invests worldwide in shares of listed companies that meet the ASN Bank's responsible-investment conditions. The fund combines ethical exclusion criteria with stock picks from leading companies

Sense Fund
Institutional alternative to the listed SNS Duurzaam Aandelenfonds (SNS sustainable equity fund). The key to this fund is its full scope evaluation. This approach investigates the company performance in terms of Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) criteria. Sense Fund invests in large cap European companies that are involved successfully in responsible entrepreneurship.

SNS Institutional Microfinance Fund
The first institutional fund for microfinance, launched in cooperation with Developing World Markets. The fund's objective is to provide microfinance at market rates to entrepreneurs in developing countries.