Prudential Assurance Company (PAC) is the asset owner for M&G plc and Prudential. Prudential, part of M&G plc, understands the importance of Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) factors in investment decisions and their potential to materially impact our customer and investment outcomes. As long-term investors across our PruFund and Annuities businesses, we, in our role as an asset owner believe that businesses and behaviours that reflect ESG best practices, and which are aligned with our values of ‘Care & Integrity’, are better-positioned to deliver sustainable success over time horizons that meet present and future customer needs. You can read more about our core values of care and integrity in our Sustainability Report here.
Our ‘Long Term Investment Strategy Team’ already considers ESG risks at a geographic level when setting asset allocations, with regional ESG risks translated into asset class Risk and Return impacts that can result in an over or under allocation within the fund and performance benchmarks. Our ‘Manager Oversight Team’ assesses and challenges managers on their ESG ambitions in the manager selection and monitoring processes across new and existing mandates. As an asset owner we have previously thought of ESG risks in generalities and at macro level, but have grown to realise a more explicit and bottom up consideration of specific ESG matters is crucial to meet the increasing focus and demand of our customers, both current and future.