Edinburgh: Standard Life Investments announced earlier this month, that the Standard Life ethical funds will no longer invest in airline stocks. This new policy has been adopted as a direct result of feedback received in the Standard Life 2007 annual ethical investor survey in which 30% of respondents stated that they would prefer a complete exclusion of airline stocks from the funds.
The 2007 survey was based on a sample of 3,000 of over 39,000 investors in Standard Life and Standard Life Investments ethical fund range. With assets under management of £143.4bn (31 Dec 2007), Standard Life Investments is one of the UK’s major investment houses.
Julie McDowell, Head of SRI, Standard Life Investments, said;
“The views of investors in our ethical fund range are of paramount importance to us. We are unique in carrying out an annual survey to understand investor wishes and concerns and we seek, wherever possible, to reflect those concerns in the criteria applicable to our ethical funds.
“The Standard Life Ethical Committee, which is comprised of senior Standard Life managers and three individual investors in the ethical funds, has considered the results of our 2007 ethical investor survey. In light of the sizeable percentage of our investors wishing to avoid investment in airlines, the Ethical Committee has decided that our ethical policy should be adapted to reflect these views. I am sure that investors welcome the fact that they play an important part in helping to shape our ethical fund criteria.”
Standard Life Investments currently manages £588.5m (1 Feb 2008) over its ethical fund range which includes the UK Ethical, Ethical Corporate Bond, European Equity Ethical, Life Ethical and Pension Ethical funds. The fund manger this year also launched an ethical investing micro-site - www.focusonethical.co.uk which features fund manager interviews, ethical stock stories, ethical guidelines and literature of interest to the ethically minded investor.
Further information
Standard Life Investments was launched as an investment management company in 1998. It is a wholly owned subsidiary of Standard Life Investments (Holdings) Limited, which in turn is a wholly owned subsidiary of Standard Life plc.
Standard Life Investments operates in the UK, Canada, Ireland, Hong Kong and the USA, and has representative offices in Germany, France, South Korea and Beijing. Standard Life Investments also operates in India through a joint venture, HDFC AMC.
[Source: Standard Life Investments]