Investing responsibly with BUSSQ

Our continued focus on responsible investing gives us opportunities to positively contribute to the world our members retire in.

As part of our Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) focus we’ve identified four of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as priority goals we can contribute to through our investments.

The SDGs are global goals to achieve a better and more sustainable future. They cover social and economic development issues such as poverty, health, education, climate change, gender equality, clean water and sanitation, affordable clean energy, urbanisation and social justice.

The SDGs BUSSQ has identified as priority goals are:

The purpose of this goal is to provide access to affordable, reliable, sustainable, and modern energy for all. A well established energy system supports all sectors: from businesses, medicine and education to agriculture, infrastructure, communications and high technology. We have investments in assets which provided renewable energy such as Bald Hills Wind farm in Victoria.

The purpose of this goal is to promote inclusive and sustainable economic growth, employment and decent work for all. Sustained and inclusive economic growth can drive progress, create decent jobs for all and improve living standards

The purpose of this goal is to make cities inclusive, safe, resilient, and sustainable. This includes basic services such as transportation and water. We have investments in public transportation and water infrastructure that treats wastewater and provides clean water.

The purpose of this goal is to take action to tackle climate change and its impacts. The Fund has recently undertaken a project with most of its investment managers to review how they assess and manage climate risks and how that impacts their portfolios. This will be conducted regularly to continually identify any areas of risk in the portfolio and assess areas where positive impacts are being seen through projects such as carbon abatement with the Fund’s investment in agriculture.

How our Fund assets positively impact our priority SDGs

The table below shows the increase in the Fund’s capital allocated to our priority goals in the 2019/20 financial year. The increase was seen across shares, infrastructure and property.

We aim to continually improve our responsible investing and this will show through improvements in the percentage of Fund assets positively impacting our priority SDGs.

Percentage of Fund assets positively impacting our priority SDGs:

_{Prepared by BUSS(Queensland) Pty Ltd ABN 15 065 081 281, AFSL 237860, Trustee of Building Unions Superannuation Scheme (Queensland) (BUSSQ) ABN 85 571 332 201.}