The following negative screens apply to the Socially Responsible option’s
Australian and
international shares asset classes.
Exclusions 5 |
Description |
Threshold |
Thermal coal |
Mining of thermal coal (including lignite, bituminous, anthracite
and steam
coal) and its sale to external parties
|
5% gross revenue (reported or estimated) threshold in
most recent
year of financial reporting
|
Metallurgical coal |
Mining of metallurgical coal (including coking coal) and its sale to
external
parties
|
Oil and gas |
Extraction and production or refining of oil and gas |
Fossil fuel power generation
|
Thermal coal, liquid fuel, and natural gas-based power generation
|
Alcohol
|
Companies that manufacture alcoholic products, including brewers,
distillers,
and vintners. It also includes companies that own or operate wine
vineyards.
|
Gambling
|
Companies that operate gambling facilities such as casinos,
racetracks, bingo
parlours, or other betting establishments
|
Adult entertainment6
|
Companies that produce adult entertainment materials
|
Tobacco and alternative smoking products7
|
Companies that manufacture tobacco products, or
products aimed to
replace or supplement tobacco products
|
No threshold (companies deriving any revenue from
manufacture of
these products are excluded)
|
Controversial weapons
|
Companies that have any tie to controversial weapons (cluster
munitions,
landmines, biological/chemical weapons, depleted uranium weapons,
blinding laser
weapons, incendiary weapons, and/or nondetectable fragments)
|
Any involvement |
Nuclear weapons
|
Companies that have an industry tie to nuclear weapons |
Live animal exports
|
Australian shares companies that own and/or operate
live animal
export operations |
Australian shares companies identified by internal
desktop research
to own and/or operate live animal export operations |
The screening criteria does not apply to pooled vehicles or derivatives, which may have indirect exposure to companies exceeding the negative screens.
The thermal coal and metallurgical coal exclusions do not apply to companies deriving revenue from coal mined for internal power generation, intra-company sales of mined thermal and metallurgical coal, or revenue from coal trading.
The implementation of the exclusions above (other than the exclusion concerning live animal exports) relies upon accuracy of data from a third-party provider (MSCI).
Sometimes we may accept excluded listed shares as part of super fund mergers. In this instance, we seek to divest in a manner aligned with members' best financial interests, usually within 30 days. Exclusion lists are updated twice yearly. Following those updates, we inform external investment managers which listed equity shares are required to be excluded from new and existing investments.
For other asset classes to which the negative screens referred to above do not apply, we still take steps to integrate consideration of material ESG risks and opportunities into investment decisions we make for the QSuper ESG options as set out in the Investment Guide (pdf).
5. Thermal coal, oil and gas, and fossil fuel power generation exclusions are based on MSCI ESG Climate Change Metrics Methodology (November 2022) and associated universe coverage. The metallurgical coal exclusion uses data supplied through, and defined within, MSCI ESG Manager platform. The alcohol, gambling, adult entertainment, tobacco and alternative smoking products, controversial weapons, and nuclear weapons exclusions use MSCI ESG Business Involvement Screening Research Methodology (October 2022) and associated universe coverage. The live animal export exclusion applies to listed Australian shares companies, and internal desktop research is conducted by Australian Retirement Trust.
6. Companies that produce adult entertainment materials that fall into the following six categories: producer of X-rated films, producer of pay-per-view programming or channels, producer of sexually explicit video games, producer of books or magazines with adult content, live entertainment of an adult nature, producer of adults-only material on the internet.
7. Tobacco and alternative smoking products refers to companies that manufacture tobacco products (or products aimed to replace or supplement tobacco products), such as cigars, blunts, cigarettes, e-cigarettes, inhalers, beedis, kreteks, smokeless tobacco, snuff, snus, dissolvable and chewing tobacco. This also includes companies that grow or process raw tobacco leaves.