Strategic Report | Governance | Financial Statements | 45
For externally managed assets, we seek to engage with our asset managers to understand their broader approach to responsible investment integration. For existing, and new managers, we use our internal responsible investment manager assessment questionnaire to source information on their approach to responsible investment at an organisational level and as part of the investment process. The outputs of our assessment feed into a broader manager performance assessment, the results of which are presented to the Investment Committee. More information can be found on our responsible investment manager assessment on page 38 of the responsible investment section. Bottom up: All of Just’s existing and prospective investments, where we have veto rights in place, are scored using our internal classification system (“PRAYG”): • Purple – excluded: divestment and no new investment • Red – restricted: no new investment • Amber – watchlist: investment permitted but close monitoring required • Yellow – neutral: investment permitted • Green – positive impact: investment encouraged This ensures a consistent and robust approach is taken to assessing environmental, social and governance risks, including climate-related risks. Our classification system leverages information from third party data providers, external asset managers (where relevant) and directly sourced information from issuers. As part of our analysis for PRAYG, the Credit Research team considers a prospective investment’s emissions using estimated or reported data before determining their recommendation. Climate risk management To explicitly consider the physical and transition risks of climate change, we leverage third party data on the Climate Value-at-Risk (“CVaR”), where data is primarily available for our liquid corporate bonds. The purpose of this data is to understand, directionally, the potential impact of different climate change-related scenarios. Where data is unavailable, primarily illiquid investments, a sector average based estimate has been applied to produce a holistic assessment of the portfolio’s exposure to physical and transition risks. We expect some of our illiquid credit assets, which are linked to renewable energy production, to exhibit less transitional risk than our liquid credit assets. Investments in these areas currently represent 4% of our credit portfolio. For other real estate and infrastructure debt assets, the transition to net zero is expected to be the dominant risk with potential costs associated with mitigation and adaptation. Lifetime Mortgage Portfolio Just Group is exposed to property risk via the LTMs held on our IFRS balance sheet. These LTMs are secured against residential properties located across the UK. If the sale proceeds from the property are insufficient to repay the accumulated loan balance on the death or entry into long-term care of the customer, Just would suffer a loss due to the no-negative equity guarantee. Climate risk can lead to increased property risk on the LTMs held on our portfolio due to changes in property values as a result of physical risks or transitional risks, for further information see pages 48 and 49.
Further Analysis of Key Risks INSURANCE RISK
The Group’s primary insurance risk exposure is to longevity risk, through products such as our Guaranteed Income for Life product. In recent decades life expectancy has improved due to medical advances and lifestyle changes, which can be expected to continue. Most deaths in this country relate to conditions such as heart disease and cancer. The overall impact of climate change on longevity is likely to be secondary through lifestyle changes rather than direct. Interacting factors, including government policy and individual lifestyle choices, make it difficult to accurately predict how much climate change could impact on longevity, but this can be expected to evolve gradually over the years. The insurance risk exposures to climate change are highly uncertain and have not yet been quantified in the Group’s risk scenarios, therefore no explicit allowance is made. Developments in this area will be carefully monitored. Our credit investments are held as long-term investments. Although the value of the investments may be affected over time by the market’s view of the borrower’s credit standing, it is the borrower’s ability to repay the debt that affects us the most. Transition risks: The companies to which we lend could face additional costs due to the nature and rate of the transition or, as a result of substitutability, assets could become stranded. Physical risks: Depending on the location, assets we are invested in may face higher costs from extreme weather events or sustained asset damage and business interruption due to impacts from longer duration physical impacts of climate change. INVESTMENT RISKS: Credit portfolio Material increased costs to the borrower, as a result of climate change, may affect their ability to meet their debt repayment obligations, increasing the risk of default. Sensitivity analysis of the risk of default on our credit portfolio is included in note 20 on page 180. Risk management – investments Credit portfolio Our Responsible Investment Framework sets the basis for managing the risk exposure arising from broader environmental, social and governance risks, including climate change, and is monitored by the Investment Committee. At the broader strategic level, we consider the overall emissions of the portfolio and other metrics, such as the portfolio’s exposure to issuers with science based targets, to monitor the portfolio’s potential future decarbonisation pathway. For the purposes of implementation, we have split our approach into the following areas: • Top down: portfolio management and asset manager due diligence. • Bottom up: credit research and investment due diligence. Top down: For internally and externally managed assets, our approach to portfolio management seeks to combine fundamental and responsible investment data, to support with meeting our overarching net zero objectives. The investment team uses outputs from our proprietary emissions modelling tool as a key input into the investment decision making process while seeking more information directly from issuer reporting, in the case of internally managed assets, and via asset managers for externally managed assets.
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