Bringing value to your values Our ESG expertise

Our commitment

Where responsible investment meets fiduciary responsibility

Dorval Asset Management takes a long-term investment approach, and we firmly believe that we have a pivotal role to play in directing investment to build a more responsible and sustainable economy. We engage with real economy stakeholders to encourage them to adapt their environmental, social and governance practices to support this transition, acting as a responsible investor as we pledge to meet the highest standards with both our clients and partners, as well as with the companies we invest in.

Dorval Asset Management’s approach since 2004 has consistently been built on shareholder dialogue, drawing on a practical and collaborative approach in our role as shareholder – further reinforced by our voting policy – as well as in our regular meetings with companies. This Governance approach is firmly rooted in the Manageurs range’s philosophy, which includes the original Dorval Manageurs fund. However, we also look beyond this aspect and include all Environmental, Social and Governance considerations in our non-financial analysis for stocks in our investment universe, and incorporate these aspects into our manager screening.

In accordance with our shareholder engagement policy complying with articles L533-22 and R533-16 of the French Monetary and Financial Code, Dorval Asset Management publicly discloses all votes it takes on resolutions put forward during shareholder meetings for companies held in funds where it has voting rights (excluding dedicated funds) via the platform below. This provides details on Dorval Asset Management’s votes for any given date or time period. These data are supplied by ISS.

This information rounds out the yearly report on application of our shareholder engagement policy.

Our approach

A practical and collaborative method

Our responsible investment policy covers the full range of Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) dimensions and spans all our management strategies, drawing on:

• Our shareholder engagement policy;
• An exclusion policy and a controversy management policy;
• Systematic screening for ESG dimensions, which is embedded in the four keystones of our investment process, drawing on Dorval Asset Management’s proprietary ESG rating methodology for stock-picking.

Our commitment took more formal shape in 2019, when Dorval Asset Management became a signatory to the Principles for Responsible Investment. We are also involved in efforts to promote the development of sustainable finance in conjunction with major French and international financial market stakeholders.

Dorval Asset Management also applies a sector exclusion policy, which we implement hand-in-hand with our ESG pledges to exclude companies in the following sectors from our investment universe:

• Controversial weapons
• Weapons (exclusion from the investment universe of all companies that derive 20% of revenues or more from this industry)
• Coal (exclusion from the investment universe of all companies that derive 20% of revenues or more from this industry)
• Tobacco

Dorval AM committed to supporting the Paris Agreement on the climate

The Paris Agreement on the climate – adopted in 2015 at the Paris climate conference COP21 – marks a turning point in the fight against climate change, with all signatory countries pledging to cut back their greenhouse gas emissions and limit global warming to well under 2.0°C as compared to pre-industrial levels. The international agreement also encourages countries to pursue their efforts to keep the increase at under 1.5°C.

Five years after the agreement was adopted, the European Union recently announced a more ambitious goal to reduce carbon emissions by 55% out to 2030 as compared with 1990. Dorval Asset Management is fully committed to supporting this goal:

• Our SRI policy excludes investments in any company that derives at least 20% of its revenue streams from coal-fired energy generation;
• We apply our engagement policy to incite companies to take an active approach in the fight against climate change;
• We work with major French and international financial market participants in our capacity as signatory to the TCFD (Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures), IIGCC (Institutional Investors Group on Climate Change) and Climate Action100;
• Lastly, we are committed to fully and transparently publishing climate indicators for all our portfolios.

Our resources

A proprietary ESG model underpins our convictions

Our proprietary ESG methodology draws on input from our partner MSCI as well as in-house research information to develop issuer ratings across each fund’s investment universe, on the basis of the following aspects:

• We assess ESG challenges and allocate an in-house weighting after screening for sector-specific, geographical and market cap considerations;
• We assign an ESG rating for each issuer based on its exposure to the challenges set out, and the way they are managed by the company.

As part of this process, our portfolio management teams and our financial and non-financial analysts screen for 37 ESG challenges based on a range of qualitative and quantitative indicators, with a particular focus on 12 of these aspects.

Corporate governance:

• Compliance with the basic principles of corporate governance i.e. quality of board of directors – diversity, independence, skills, representation –, alignment of interests with shareholders, capital structure, consideration for minority shareholders, quality of financial reporting and accounting;
• Anti-corruption efforts.

Environmental considerations:

• Carbon emissions;
• Waste management;
• Water stress;
• Biodiversity and land management;
• Opportunities in green technologies and renewable energies.

Social aspects:

• Labor management;
• Staff health and safety management;
• Human capital management;
• Personal data protection;
• Product quality.

This stringent rating process assigns an ESG score to each stock in our investment universe, which provides direct input for our portfolio construction and the development of our share price objectives.