2018
2017
2016
A responsible investment leader
2019
2020
Insight introduced proprietary ESG ratings for corporates to address the gaps in third-party data, especially for smaller, high-yield and emerging market debt issuers.
We introduced a comprehensive ranking of how fixed income corporate credit issuers manage their climate change-related risks and opportunities. The Prime climate risk ratings cover a range of key climate-related issues, including physical and transition risks. Growth in the impact (use of proceeds) bond market led us to develop a proprietary impact bond analysis framework, to help our analysts discern whether an impact bond meets our expectations for sustainability characteristics. In response to client demand, we introduced our first pooled fund with sustainability and ESG objectives, building on our years of expertise analysing and engaging with corporates on sustainability issues.
We introduced our country sustainability risk index. This aims to help us better understand the ESG risks at the country level across our portfolios.
Insight enhanced our proprietary ESG ratings, introducing customised metrics to make the data as pertinent as possible to our analysis and offering high coverage of global benchmarks.
We expanded our responsible investment policy, to spell out in detail the six principles that guide our business and investment approach. We introduced sovereign ESG impact ratings, helping us understand how countries are aligned with the UN Sustainable Development Goals, enabling us to build portfolios for clients seeking sovereign debt portfolios with sustainability objectives.
2023
2022
2021
2024
We joined the UN Global Compact, confirming Insight’s commitment to supporting its 10 principles on human rights, labour, the environment and anti-corruption. We became a signatory to the initial Net Zero Asset Managers initiative, setting out an ambition to reach net-zero emissions on assets in scope. In 2026, we confirmed our participation in the revised initiative through our UK-based holding company, Insight Investment Management Limited (IIML).
2025
We introduced a thematic engagement programme. For 2022, the themes were climate change, water management, and diversity and inclusion as themes on which to engage with issuers. We introduced a counterparty engagement programme, with the objective of achieving a greater level of impact in our engagements with entities in their capacity as counterparties. We are taking a thematic approach focused on areas including environmental factors, remuneration, diversity and cyber.
Some of our clients have net-zero goals. To support these clients, we created proprietary net-zero ratings to categorise corporate issuers according to the extent of their commitment to and alignment with achieving net zero by 2050. We introduced two investment strategies, in response to client demand, that seek to support positive environmental and social impacts alongside generating financial returns, primarily through investing in use-of-proceeds bonds in Europe and emerging markets. We rolled out training programmes to offer Insight’s specialists access to education on themes and trends relevant to responsible investment, where practical and relevant to our clients and portfolios we manage on their behalf.
We introduced a framework for considering sustainability-related factors within our systematic fixed income investment strategies, which aimed to deliver more data coverage due to the significantly diversified nature of these portfolios. We published research on the relevance of water-related risks to portfolios, explaining why we believe such risks are material and set to increase for corporate bond issuers, and setting out a proposal for integrating analysis of water risk into investment research and decision-making.
For our clients with net-zero goals, we expanded our proprietary net-zero ratings to categorise sovereign issuers, as well as corporate issuers, according to the extent of their commitment to and alignment with achieving net zero. Insight introduced a Corporate Sustainability Working Group to manage corporate sustainability requirements, defining corporate sustainability strategy, risks, initiatives, and regulatory requirements in coordination with our parent company, BNY.
