Ethical criteria for investments

Over 200 criteria for ethical and ecological investment

More than 200 criteria are used in the ethical assessment of issuers, which are systematically analyzed for companies or countries.
The PRIME VALUES Ethics Committee’s strict assessment procedure has been continuously refined over the past 30 years. From the outset, a combination of exclusion and positive criteria has been used unchanged. The procedure is described in detail in the Eurosif Transparency Guideline.

Ethical criteria of the PRIME VALUES investment philosophy

The assessment of companies/issuers from an ethical perspective is based on clear exclusion criteria and ethics analysis in order to enable a selection of proactive companies.

Investors’ capital is made available to issuers that promote the following principles:

Best possible protection and promotion of the interests of all stakeholders, including the protection of the natural environment
Reverence for human dignity and for life, taking into account the basis of life of all beings
Creating meaning for society and its development in an ethically positive direction

These principles are concretized in defined exclusion and positive criteria.

Exclusion criteria for sustainable companies:

Exclusion criteria are used for pre-selection and exclude issuers that do not meet the defined exclusion criteria (in accordance with the above-mentioned principles). If an issuer violates one or more exclusion criteria, it is not analyzed further. If the analysis reveals a violation of exclusion criteria, the security is excluded from the investment universe.

Positive criteria for ethical companies:

At the heart of every issuer analysis are the positive criteria. Thanks to these, issuers can be assessed from an ethical and sustainable perspective. A company can achieve a maximum of 100 points. To qualify for inclusion in the investment universe, a company must score at least 50 points. Various predicates are assigned to the points scale for better understanding:

<50 points: not justifiable – excluded
50-65 points: justifiable
66-80 points: positive
>81 points: high quality

The analysis from an ethical perspective focuses on five detailed questions for companies.

The five ethical perspectives

Five ethical perspectives	Criteria
1. understanding of responsibility	a) Declared self-image b) Profit orientation c) Corporate governance d) Management principles e) Stakeholder concept and social commitment
2. offer (products and services)	a) Business model b) Customer benefit c) Consumer protection d) Sense and legitimacy from a societal-social perspective e) Sense and legitimacy from an ecological perspective
3. processes	a) Production b) Customers c) Employees d) Suppliers e) Management systems
4. protection of natural resources	a) Policy (environmental guideline) b) Operational ecology c) Value chain (from an ecological perspective) d) Products (product ecology) e) Innovation and proactivity
5. transparency and reputation	a) Image of the company b) Information (information density, depth) c) Controversies d) Corruption, bribery e) Reputation

Country assessment - Exclusion criteria government bonds

Exclusion criteria:

Military has nuclear weapons
Military budget in the past 5 years >2% of GDP and no ethically reflected defense policy (international treaties, etc.)
The death penalty is in its legal status
Lack of an ecologically sound energy policy (energy mix, use of nuclear energy, signing of COP 21, promotion of renewable energy sources, climate targets)
Inadequate human rights standards
Above-average exposure to corruption
Dictatorial government or non-democratically legitimized regime

Currently non-investable government bonds, including:
France, UK, USA, Finland, China

The country assessment is based exclusively on exclusion criteria and relates solely to government bonds (not to the companies operating in the respective countries).

Basics