We are pleased to announce that we have been once again awarded ‘Best sustainability reporting by an asset or fund manager: medium and small (fixed income)’ at the Environmental Finance Sustainable Investment Awards 2022.
The Environmental Finance Sustainable Investment Awards honour investors who have been leaders in the field of sustainable finance.
An important part of our investment philosophy is ensuring our investors receive transparent impact reporting so our clients can monitor the real, environmental and social impact of their investments alongside the financial return. We are delighted to have been recognised by Environmental Finance as a leader in impact reporting for the third year in a row, formerly at their Bond Awards 2021 and Sustainable Investment Awards 2020.
In presenting AIM with the award this year, Environmental Finance highlighted our high impact reporting coverage, at over 90% across portfolios, as well as our transparency of methodology:
This high level of coverage is predominantly a result of the firm focusing on in-house data collection, unlike many other asset managers, it claims.
“Project level data collection is a key area in which asset managers continue to struggle, evidenced by low portfolio coverage percentages,” the AIM sustainability team told Environmental Finance. “At AIM we collect all impact data in-house and engage with issuers to obtain the project-level metrics we require for our impact reports. Part of our initial verification criteria requires us to review an issuer’s commitment to transparency and reporting for an issuance to meet our verification threshold.”
For this reason, AIM is consistently able to deliver 90% coverage for its portfolios. What is more, the AIM team said this in-house approach – while time-consuming – has the “additional benefit of initiating an in-depth annual review of our holdings”.
AIM also aims to ensure its methodology is transparent to support standardisation of impact reporting by publishing its calculation methods. In 2021, its impact report included data on Scope 1, 2 and 3 greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions footprints and savings, Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) alignment, and Weighted Average Carbon Intensity (WACI).
AIM also co-created [partnering with ISS-ESG and Lion’s Head Global] the Rockefeller Foundation-funded Carbon Yield Methodology (CYM) in 2016 to support impact reporting standardisation. In 2021, AIM enhanced its own use of the CYM by implementing a dynamic baseline leveraging the International Energy Agency (IEA) Stated Policy Scenario (STEPS).
In 2022, AIM is looking to incorporate EU Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation (SFDR) metrics into all its portfolio reports – a year ahead of when it is required to do so under the rules. The firm is also reporting project-level net-zero alignment for the first time alongside its existing avoided emissions analysis.
For more information about the award, please click here.