Responsible investments

We are global institutional investors and asset management is a key aspect of the insurance business. It has a significant impact on the real economy, allowing us to actively influence areas such as environmental protection and respect for human rights and labour rights.

We are signatories of the United Nations Global Compact and the Principles for Responsible Investments (PRI) and for a number of years now we have been basing our investment strategies also on environmental, social and corporate governance (ESG) criteria, without sacrificing profitability. In addition, we have continued to uphold the principle of protecting our most sensitive asset: our reputation.

Generali Group formalized its commitment to responsible investment in 2006 and in 2010 its own Group Ethical Guidelines were approved. In 2015, we further developed our approach in the Responsible Investment Group Guideline document.

In particular, we identify, assess and monitor the investments that are most exposed to social, environmental and corporate governance risks for all our Group insurance companies’ portfolios. 

In 2020:

• 326,425 mln euro
  Direct investment in equities and bonds in accordance with the Responsible Investment Group Guideline
• 41,508 mln euro
  Asset under Management managed with ESG criteria

We contemplate in our strategy investments in companies, projects or investment funds aimed at improving the living conditions of the communities in which we operate or at reducing risks and mitigating the effects of climate change, with the overarching aim of generating a positive social and environmental impact, and contributing to the objectives of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, while maintaining an adequate financial return.

As of year-end 2020, the Group has carried out 5,973 mln euro of new Green and Sustainable investments, mainly through Green bonds and financing Green infrastructure projects, achieving and surpassing in advance the target of 4.5 bln euro set for 2021. 

Our objective is to leverage our role of institutional investor to foster change through investment. We use dialogue to encourage issuer companies to act responsibly, asking them to justify their conduct if it does not meet the sustainability standards set by the Group.

For the wider purpose of steering the role of the Group as an active owner, we defined a comprehensive Group Active Ownership Framework, regulated by a Group Guideline document.

The Active Ownership Group Guideline – Asset Owner has been drawn up in compliance with the obligations introduced by the Shareholder Rights Directive II as regards the engagement policy of institutional investors (Art. 3g of Directive (EU) 2017/828 amending Directive 2007/36/EC), the Sustainability-related Disclosures in the Financial Services Sector (EU Regulation 2019/2088), and duly takes into account best practices from international standards to which the Group adheres.