Sustainable Index Solutions

Taking high-impact, low-carbon solutions to the next level

Key points

Access to our leading Sustainability and Factor expertise
Transparency towards clients only, to mitigate the risk of overcrowding
Efficient index construction with low turnover and cost and capacity management

Two massive trends have emerged in the market over the past years: index investing and sustainable investing. While solutions tapping into these two areas are widely available, sustainable index solutions with a forward-looking, low-carbon approach that don’t compromise financial objectives and align with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals is another thing. We use our leading sustainable and index construction IP, research teams and experience to create a compelling sustainable alternative to passive market-cap indices, allowing our clients to align with positive impact and reduce their carbon footprints.

Our approach

The Sustainable Index Solutions team transforms the broad market index universe into a sustainable index universe. The solutions:

Positive impact
Exclude worst scoring stocks based on Robeco's time-tested SDG Framework. By doing so, our sustainable index solutions give more weight to companies that are aligned with positive impact.
Lower carbon footprint
Significantly lower the carbon footprint based on fundamental forward-looking view of Robeco Climate Strategy team and SDG Framework: exclude climate laggards and polluters.
Contributing to a low-carbon economy
Retain climate leaders, which are companies that might have a high carbon footprint based on their current and past emissions but are driving "green innovation" and therefore essential in the transition to a low-carbon economy. We identify these climate leaders through the Robeco SDG Framework.
Optimize the index
Optimize the index constituents' weights towards the SDGs (sustainability) for the SDG Low-Carbon indices and towards high and balanced factor exposure (return) for the Sustainable Multi-Factor indices.
Research shows that public transparency of indices causes a key disadvantage to a public index investor. Other market participants try to benefit from this public information, resulting in hidden implicit costs. Robeco's indices are only transparent to you, our client, and we do not share this transparency with all market participants, thereby mitigating these risks and that of overcrowding.

Team

The Sustainable Index Solutions team comprises passionate thinkers who challenge the status quo. We incorporate their award-winning research into our investment process. Senior members of the team have developed and scaled up multiple investment capabilities at Robeco.

The team consists of many complementary skillsets with academic specializations in climate finance, computer science, econometrics and financial economics. Our PhD program ensures we are able to recruit some of the best talent in the fields of climate finance and econometrics.

Sub-strategies

Our Sustainable Indices go beyond generic sustainability data and incorporate fundamental and forward-looking information Joop Huij

Joop Huij

PhD, Head of Sustainable Index Solutions

Sustainability

The Sustainable Index Solutions team integrates sustainability in all their indices. They strive for positive impact through the integration of Robeco's SDG Framework in their indices and to contribute to a low-carbon economy through the integration of both the forward-looking fundamental view of Robeco's Climate Strategy team and our SDG Framework.

Regions

This strategy is available for various investment regions: Global All Country, Developed Markets, Emerging Markets, US, Europe, Asia-Pacific and Japan.

Ingredients

Core solution
A central investment of a long-term portfolio
Research-driven
A true understanding of the topic has been in our DNA since the start
SDGs
Investments that quantifiably contribute to the SDGs
Climate transition
Investing that aims to assist in meeting decarbonization objectives