Active Solar Fund
SRI Style:
Environmental Style
SDR Labelling:
Not eligible to use label
Product:
SICAV/Offshore
Fund Region:
Global
Fund Asset Type:
Equity
Launch Date:
15/09/2008
Last Amended:
Apr 2023
Dialshifter (
):
Fund Size:
£99.22m
(as at: 30/11/2024)
Total Screened Themed SRI Assets:
£242.00m
(as at: 27/03/2023)
Total Assets Under Management:
£242.00m
ISIN:
LU2341110356, LU2341110190
Contact Us:
Objectives:
The investment objective of the fund is long-term capital appreciation through investing at least two thirds of the assets in shares of companies whose primary activity is associated with the solar industry.
The Fund has sustainable investment as its objective and accordingly complies with Article 9 of Regulation (EU) 2019/2088 on sustainability-related disclosures in the financial services sector (“SFDR”).
Sustainable, Responsible
&/or ESG Overview:
No response when requested update from manager (March 2024)
Active Solar primary environmental objective is Climate Change Mitigation.
Solar energy is one of the least polluting sources of energy. When power is generated by a solar installation, it reduces CO2 emissions, because electric power is not generated by a more polluting source of energy.
The environmental objective of the fund is ensured as follows:
- The Fund invests in the best companies in the solar sector based on a detailed fundamental analysis;
- The Fund’s portfolio manager seeks to identify the leaders in each of the segments of the solar photovoltaics value chain;
- The activities of these companies are altogether needed to install Solar PV;
- Any new Solar PV installations will generate very-low carbon electricity;
- The generated clean electricity is replacing a polluting source of energy (coal or gas) that is already existing or should have been planned in order to cope with rising demand.
Primary fund last amended:
Apr 2023
Information directly from fund manager.
Fund Filters
Sustainability - General
Funds that have policies that consider (environmental and social) sustainability issues. Strategies vary but are likely to consider environmental issues like climate change, carbon emissions, biodiversity loss, resource management, environmental impacts; and social issues like equal opportunities, human rights, labour standards, diversity and adherence to internationally recognised codes. See fund information.
Find funds which substantially focus on sustainability issues
Find funds that publicly report their performance against specifically named sustainability objectives (in addition to reporting their financial performance)
Environmental - General
Funds that have policies which relate to environmental issues. These will typically set out the fund's stance on issues such as pollution, climate change, resource management, biodiversity loss, carbon emissions, plastics and/or additional environmental impacts. Strategies vary. See fund information for further information.
Funds that limit or 'reduce' their exposure to carbon intensive industries (ie sectors which are major contributors to climate change. Funds vary - some funds may be 'underweight' in this area which means they may have some investment in highly carbon intensive areas. Funds of this kind may choose companies they consider to be 'best in sector' and encourage ever higher standards. Strategies vary. See fund information for further details.
Climate Change & Energy
Funds that have policies (documented strategies that explain their position on) climate change related issues such as greenhouse gas/carbon emissions, net zero, transitioning to lower carbon. Strategies vary. Read fund details for further information.
Funds that avoid investing in major coal, oil and/or gas (extraction) companies. Funds vary: some may exclude all companies that extract oil. Others may have exposure to oil extraction via more diversified energy companies. See fund literature to confirm details.
Funds that avoid companies involved in fracking and tar sands - which are widely regarded as controversial methods of oil and gas extraction. Strategies vary. See fund information for further information.
Funds that avoid companies that are involved in extracting oil from the Arctic regions. See fund literature for further details.
Funds that avoid investing in companies with coal, oil and gas reserves. See fund information for further details.
Find funds where investment in clean / renewable energy companies an other assets is central to their investment selection strategy. The proportion of the fund that is directly or indirectly invested in renewable energy varies between funds and over time. See fund information for further details.
Funds that hold companies in the clean energy and renewable energy sectors (at the time research was supplied). Fund strategies vary, in particular the proportion of investment in these areas may vary significantly. Check fund literature for details.
The fund manager excludes companies with direct involvement in fossil fuel exploration (eg coal, oil and gas companies)
The fund manager excludes companies with indirect involvement in fossil fuel exploration. For example they would be expected to exclude banks and insurance companies that are effectively enabling new coal, oil and or gas reserves to be discovered and in due course extracted through the provision of necessary finance or services.
Ethical Values Led Exclusions
Companies are excluded if they are involved in any aspect of the production chain for tobacco products, including cigarettes, vaping, e-cigarettes, chewing tobacco and cigars.
Find funds that avoid companies that manufacture products intended specifically for military use. Fund strategies vary - particularly with regard to non-strategic military products. See fund literature for fund specific details.
Find funds with a written civilian firearms exclusion policy - meaning that they will not invest in companies that make (or perhaps also sell) handguns made for non-military users.
Find funds that avoid investment in companies involved in the production of alcohol. Strategies vary; some funds allow a small proportion of profits to come from this area. See fund literature for further information.
Find funds that avoid companies with significant involvement in the gambling industry. Some funds may allow a small proportion of profits to come from this area. See fund policy for further details.
Find funds that avoid companies that derive significant income from pornography and related areas. Strategies vary. See fund details for further information.
Governance & Management
Find fund options that have policies that relate to corporate governance issues such as board structure, executive remuneration, bribery and/or corporate corruption. These funds will typically avoid companies with poor practices. Strategies vary. See fund literature for further information.
Exclude companies that are subject to United Nations sanctions. See eg https://main.un.org/securitycouncil/en/content/un-sc-consolidated-list
Fund Governance
Find funds that factor in 'environmental, social and governance' issues as part of their investment decision making process. A focus on 'ESG' typically means a fund is carrying out additional research to help reduce ESG related risks. It does not necessarily mean a focus on sustainability. Strategies vary. See fund literature.
Asset Size
Find funds that have SRI strategies and focus their investment stock selection on larger companies. (e.g. over circa £5-£10bn)
Targeted Positive Investments
Find funds that have calculated the proportion of fund asset that meet the new EU Taxonomy requirements and that they total 5-25% of assets. This will typically require adding up the proportion of each individual company's activity that is regarded as 'green' so that the fund manager can produce an overall total for the whole fund / portfolio.
Find funds that have calculated the proportion of fund asset that meet the new EU Taxonomy requirements and that they total over 25% of fund assets. This will typically require adding up the proportion of each individual company's activity that is regarded as 'green' so that the fund manager can produce an overall total for the whole fund / portfolio.
Impact Methodologies
Find funds that direct investment towards companies where a major part of their business is about solving environmental challenges. e.g. companies helping to address climate change.
How The Fund Works
Single resource themed funds focus their investment strategy on a single natural 'resource' eg water. See fund information for further detail.
Aims to avoid companies that do significant harm. This originates from the EU’s sustainable finance ‘DNSH’ (do no significant harm) work, which is not necessarily used by UK investors.
Unscreened Assets & Cash
All assets held in the fund - except cash - meet the sustainability criteria published in fund documentation.
Labels & Accreditations
Finds funds classified under Article 9 of the EU’s SFDR (Sustainable Finance Disclosure Requirements). Article 9 of the SFDR applies to financial products that have sustainable investment 'objectives' - including emissions reduction objectives. (These may currently be referred to as 'impact' funds or aiming to deliver clear, specific positive outcomes.) These rules do not currently apply in the UK so fund managers may leave this field blank.
Fund Management Company Information
About The Business
Find fund management companies that are smaller or specialise in particular areas - notably, ideally ESG related. Strategies vary.
Find fund management companies that consider environmental, social and governance (ESG) issues when deciding whether or not to invest in a company for all / almost all of their funds and other assets. This is increasingly seen as part of sound risk management.
Collaborations & Affiliations
Find fund management companies that have signed up to the UN backed 'Principles of Responsible Investment'.
Fund management entity is a member of the Investment Association https://www.theia.org/
Climate & Net Zero Transition
Find fund management companies that are working with the companies they invest in to encourage reductions in carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions.
Transparency
Find fund management companies that have supplied Dialshifter information. See Dialshifter tab within record for more information.
Sustainable, Responsible &/or ESG Policy:
The strategy of the Fund is to invest in the best companies in the solar sector based on a detailed fundamental analysis and on the exclusion of companies with material ESG risk as well as the exclusion of the following sector: Weapons, tobacco, alcohol, gambling, pornography, cannabis, coal and GMO.
Process:
The ESG analysis and scoring is fully integrated into the investment management process. The methodology of a fundamental analysis is applied to all the companies making up the investment universe. This procedure considers both macroeconomic and microeconomic factors and integrates a risk assessment of the companies through an ESG scorecard rating based on 13 sustainability indicators mentioned below.
Sources
We mainly use the companies’ dedicated sustainability reports, typically named: Sustainability Report, CSR Report, ESG Report, Impact Report, Non-Financial Report.
We also use the available data coming from independent assurance companies that provide labels and certifications as well as data from international data providers such as Bloomberg.
Ratings of individual factors
- We rate individually each of the following factors:
- Environmental indicators: sustainability of supply chain / energy usage / water usage / direct GHG emissions / global carbon footprint / waste management.
- Social indicators: responsible employer / health and safety / impact on communities.
- Governance indicators: governance structure / board of directors / risk management / code of ethics.
-1 is the lowest grade. This means a given criteria is either not considered at all by the company or not documented in their report.
0 is the passing grade: it is the minimum acceptable grade in order to assess that a given criteria is treated in an ESG responsible way.
+1 is the maximum grade hence the best ESG approach on a given criteria.
Overall score
An average rating is computed for each category (Environmental, Social, Governance) applying an equal weight to each of the individual factors.
A global ESG rating of the company is computed in applying a factor 3 to the Environmental grade and a factor 1 to the Social and Governance grades. We believe it makes sense to overweight the Environmental contribution because this is directly linked to the core business of the companies of the portfolios and their respective sustainable environmental objectives
Therefore, each company receive an overall ESG score between -1 and +1.
Consequences on portfolio management
First, there is a direct impact on our portfolio management as we have set the following rules:
- If the ESG score is between -1 and -0.5, then the company is excluded from our portfolio;
- If the ESG score is between -0.5 and 0, then the company can only be temporarily accepted in the portfolio. We monitor the company and if its ESG score does not improve after a year, it will be excluded from the portfolio. Furthermore, a company with such a score cannot be in the top 5 holdings of the portfolio.
Second, the ESG score is taken into account into our global risk assessment of a company. A very good ESG score will lower the risk of the company, while a just acceptable ESG score will increase the risk of the company.
As our investment process weights the companies primarily on their risk/return profile, their ESG score will have a direct impact on their weight allocated in the portfolio.
Review
The ESG analysis of a company is reviewed at least once a year or as often as new significant information is available.
Resources, Affiliations & Corporate Strategies:
Active Niche Funds SA (ANF) has developed an in-house ESG analysis of the companies in which the long-only funds Active Solar is invested.
In order to comply with article 9 SFDR it is key to invest mainly in companies with positive ESG credentials and to exclude companies with unsatisfactory ESG credentials.
We mainly use the companies’ dedicated sustainability reports, typically named: Sustainability Report, CSR Report, ESG Report, Impact Report, Non-Financial Report.
We also use the available data coming from independent assurance companies that provide labels and certifications.
In order to keep enhancing the data coverage for our ESG analysis and scoring, we are in the process of onboarding a new external tool (Clarity AI) .
We are a signatory to the UN Principles for Responsible Investing (UNPRI).
We believe that the taxonomy regulation will harmonise and bring reporting to a level playing field.
Dialshifter
This fund is helping to ‘shift the dial from brown to green’ by…
...investing only in solar companies that actively contribute to climate change mitigation.
Our organisation is helping to support the Paris Climate Agreement and the Race to Net Zero by…
Having an objective of reduction of greenhouse gas emissions.
SDR Labelling:
Not eligible to use label
Literature
Fund Holdings
Voting Record
Fund Name | SRI Style | SDR Labelling | Product | Region | Asset Type | Launch Date | Last Amended |
|
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Active Solar Fund |
Environmental Style | Not eligible to use label | SICAV/Offshore | Global | Equity | 15/09/2008 | Apr 2023 | |
ObjectivesThe investment objective of the fund is long-term capital appreciation through investing at least two thirds of the assets in shares of companies whose primary activity is associated with the solar industry. The Fund has sustainable investment as its objective and accordingly complies with Article 9 of Regulation (EU) 2019/2088 on sustainability-related disclosures in the financial services sector (“SFDR”). |
Fund Size: £99.22m (as at: 30/11/2024) Total Screened Themed SRI Assets: £242.00m (as at: 27/03/2023) Total Assets Under Management: £242.00m (as at: 30/11/2024) ISIN: LU2341110356, LU2341110190 Contact Us: info@activenf.ch |
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Sustainable, Responsible &/or ESG OverviewNo response when requested update from manager (March 2024)
Active Solar primary environmental objective is Climate Change Mitigation. Solar energy is one of the least polluting sources of energy. When power is generated by a solar installation, it reduces CO2 emissions, because electric power is not generated by a more polluting source of energy. The environmental objective of the fund is ensured as follows:
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Primary fund last amended: Apr 2023 |
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Information received directly from Fund Manager |
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Fund FiltersSustainability - General
Sustainability policy
Funds that have policies that consider (environmental and social) sustainability issues. Strategies vary but are likely to consider environmental issues like climate change, carbon emissions, biodiversity loss, resource management, environmental impacts; and social issues like equal opportunities, human rights, labour standards, diversity and adherence to internationally recognised codes. See fund information.
Sustainability focus
Find funds which substantially focus on sustainability issues
Report against sustainability objectives
Find funds that publicly report their performance against specifically named sustainability objectives (in addition to reporting their financial performance) Environmental - General
Environmental policy
Funds that have policies which relate to environmental issues. These will typically set out the fund's stance on issues such as pollution, climate change, resource management, biodiversity loss, carbon emissions, plastics and/or additional environmental impacts. Strategies vary. See fund information for further information.
Limits exposure to carbon intensive industries
Funds that limit or 'reduce' their exposure to carbon intensive industries (ie sectors which are major contributors to climate change. Funds vary - some funds may be 'underweight' in this area which means they may have some investment in highly carbon intensive areas. Funds of this kind may choose companies they consider to be 'best in sector' and encourage ever higher standards. Strategies vary. See fund information for further details. Climate Change & Energy
Climate change / greenhouse gas emissions policy
Funds that have policies (documented strategies that explain their position on) climate change related issues such as greenhouse gas/carbon emissions, net zero, transitioning to lower carbon. Strategies vary. Read fund details for further information.
Coal, oil & / or gas majors excluded
Funds that avoid investing in major coal, oil and/or gas (extraction) companies. Funds vary: some may exclude all companies that extract oil. Others may have exposure to oil extraction via more diversified energy companies. See fund literature to confirm details.
Fracking and tar sands excluded
Funds that avoid companies involved in fracking and tar sands - which are widely regarded as controversial methods of oil and gas extraction. Strategies vary. See fund information for further information.
Arctic drilling exclusion
Funds that avoid companies that are involved in extracting oil from the Arctic regions. See fund literature for further details.
Fossil fuel reserves exclusion
Funds that avoid investing in companies with coal, oil and gas reserves. See fund information for further details.
Clean / renewable energy theme or focus
Find funds where investment in clean / renewable energy companies an other assets is central to their investment selection strategy. The proportion of the fund that is directly or indirectly invested in renewable energy varies between funds and over time. See fund information for further details.
Invests in clean energy / renewables
Funds that hold companies in the clean energy and renewable energy sectors (at the time research was supplied). Fund strategies vary, in particular the proportion of investment in these areas may vary significantly. Check fund literature for details.
Fossil fuel exploration exclusion - direct involvement
The fund manager excludes companies with direct involvement in fossil fuel exploration (eg coal, oil and gas companies)
Fossil fuel exploration exclusion – indirect involvement
The fund manager excludes companies with indirect involvement in fossil fuel exploration. For example they would be expected to exclude banks and insurance companies that are effectively enabling new coal, oil and or gas reserves to be discovered and in due course extracted through the provision of necessary finance or services. Ethical Values Led Exclusions
Tobacco and related product manufacturers excluded
Companies are excluded if they are involved in any aspect of the production chain for tobacco products, including cigarettes, vaping, e-cigarettes, chewing tobacco and cigars.
Armaments manufacturers avoided
Find funds that avoid companies that manufacture products intended specifically for military use. Fund strategies vary - particularly with regard to non-strategic military products. See fund literature for fund specific details.
Civilian firearms production exclusion
Find funds with a written civilian firearms exclusion policy - meaning that they will not invest in companies that make (or perhaps also sell) handguns made for non-military users.
Alcohol production excluded
Find funds that avoid investment in companies involved in the production of alcohol. Strategies vary; some funds allow a small proportion of profits to come from this area. See fund literature for further information.
Gambling avoidance policy
Find funds that avoid companies with significant involvement in the gambling industry. Some funds may allow a small proportion of profits to come from this area. See fund policy for further details.
Pornography avoidance policy
Find funds that avoid companies that derive significant income from pornography and related areas. Strategies vary. See fund details for further information. Governance & Management
Governance policy
Find fund options that have policies that relate to corporate governance issues such as board structure, executive remuneration, bribery and/or corporate corruption. These funds will typically avoid companies with poor practices. Strategies vary. See fund literature for further information.
UN sanctions exclusion
Exclude companies that are subject to United Nations sanctions. See eg https://main.un.org/securitycouncil/en/content/un-sc-consolidated-list Fund Governance
ESG integration strategy
Find funds that factor in 'environmental, social and governance' issues as part of their investment decision making process. A focus on 'ESG' typically means a fund is carrying out additional research to help reduce ESG related risks. It does not necessarily mean a focus on sustainability. Strategies vary. See fund literature. Asset Size
Invests mostly in large cap companies / assets
Find funds that have SRI strategies and focus their investment stock selection on larger companies. (e.g. over circa £5-£10bn) Targeted Positive Investments
EU Sustainable Finance Taxonomy holdings 5-25% of fund assets
Find funds that have calculated the proportion of fund asset that meet the new EU Taxonomy requirements and that they total 5-25% of assets. This will typically require adding up the proportion of each individual company's activity that is regarded as 'green' so that the fund manager can produce an overall total for the whole fund / portfolio.
EU Sustainable Finance Taxonomy holdings >25% of fund assets
Find funds that have calculated the proportion of fund asset that meet the new EU Taxonomy requirements and that they total over 25% of fund assets. This will typically require adding up the proportion of each individual company's activity that is regarded as 'green' so that the fund manager can produce an overall total for the whole fund / portfolio. Impact Methodologies
Invests in environmental solutions companies
Find funds that direct investment towards companies where a major part of their business is about solving environmental challenges. e.g. companies helping to address climate change. How The Fund Works
Single resource theme or focus
Single resource themed funds focus their investment strategy on a single natural 'resource' eg water. See fund information for further detail.
Significant harm exclusion
Aims to avoid companies that do significant harm. This originates from the EU’s sustainable finance ‘DNSH’ (do no significant harm) work, which is not necessarily used by UK investors. Unscreened Assets & Cash
All assets (except cash) meet published sustainability criteria
All assets held in the fund - except cash - meet the sustainability criteria published in fund documentation. Labels & Accreditations
SFDR Article 9 fund / product (EU)
Finds funds classified under Article 9 of the EU’s SFDR (Sustainable Finance Disclosure Requirements). Article 9 of the SFDR applies to financial products that have sustainable investment 'objectives' - including emissions reduction objectives. (These may currently be referred to as 'impact' funds or aiming to deliver clear, specific positive outcomes.) These rules do not currently apply in the UK so fund managers may leave this field blank. Fund Management Company InformationAbout The Business
Boutique / specialist fund management company
Find fund management companies that are smaller or specialise in particular areas - notably, ideally ESG related. Strategies vary.
Integrates ESG factors into all / most (AFM) fund research
Find fund management companies that consider environmental, social and governance (ESG) issues when deciding whether or not to invest in a company for all / almost all of their funds and other assets. This is increasingly seen as part of sound risk management. Collaborations & Affiliations
PRI signatory
Find fund management companies that have signed up to the UN backed 'Principles of Responsible Investment'.
Investment Association (IA) member
Fund management entity is a member of the Investment Association https://www.theia.org/ Climate & Net Zero Transition
Encourage carbon / greenhouse gas reduction (AFM company wide)
Find fund management companies that are working with the companies they invest in to encourage reductions in carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions. Transparency
Dialshifter statement
Find fund management companies that have supplied Dialshifter information. See Dialshifter tab within record for more information. Sustainable, Responsible &/or ESG Policy:The strategy of the Fund is to invest in the best companies in the solar sector based on a detailed fundamental analysis and on the exclusion of companies with material ESG risk as well as the exclusion of the following sector: Weapons, tobacco, alcohol, gambling, pornography, cannabis, coal and GMO. Process:The ESG analysis and scoring is fully integrated into the investment management process. The methodology of a fundamental analysis is applied to all the companies making up the investment universe. This procedure considers both macroeconomic and microeconomic factors and integrates a risk assessment of the companies through an ESG scorecard rating based on 13 sustainability indicators mentioned below.
Sources We mainly use the companies’ dedicated sustainability reports, typically named: Sustainability Report, CSR Report, ESG Report, Impact Report, Non-Financial Report. We also use the available data coming from independent assurance companies that provide labels and certifications as well as data from international data providers such as Bloomberg.
Ratings of individual factors
-1 is the lowest grade. This means a given criteria is either not considered at all by the company or not documented in their report. 0 is the passing grade: it is the minimum acceptable grade in order to assess that a given criteria is treated in an ESG responsible way. +1 is the maximum grade hence the best ESG approach on a given criteria.
Overall score An average rating is computed for each category (Environmental, Social, Governance) applying an equal weight to each of the individual factors. A global ESG rating of the company is computed in applying a factor 3 to the Environmental grade and a factor 1 to the Social and Governance grades. We believe it makes sense to overweight the Environmental contribution because this is directly linked to the core business of the companies of the portfolios and their respective sustainable environmental objectives Therefore, each company receive an overall ESG score between -1 and +1.
Consequences on portfolio management First, there is a direct impact on our portfolio management as we have set the following rules:
Second, the ESG score is taken into account into our global risk assessment of a company. A very good ESG score will lower the risk of the company, while a just acceptable ESG score will increase the risk of the company. As our investment process weights the companies primarily on their risk/return profile, their ESG score will have a direct impact on their weight allocated in the portfolio.
Review The ESG analysis of a company is reviewed at least once a year or as often as new significant information is available. Resources, Affiliations & Corporate Strategies:Active Niche Funds SA (ANF) has developed an in-house ESG analysis of the companies in which the long-only funds Active Solar is invested. In order to comply with article 9 SFDR it is key to invest mainly in companies with positive ESG credentials and to exclude companies with unsatisfactory ESG credentials. We mainly use the companies’ dedicated sustainability reports, typically named: Sustainability Report, CSR Report, ESG Report, Impact Report, Non-Financial Report. We also use the available data coming from independent assurance companies that provide labels and certifications. In order to keep enhancing the data coverage for our ESG analysis and scoring, we are in the process of onboarding a new external tool (Clarity AI) .
We are a signatory to the UN Principles for Responsible Investing (UNPRI). We believe that the taxonomy regulation will harmonise and bring reporting to a level playing field. DialshifterThis fund is helping to ‘shift the dial from brown to green’ by… ...investing only in solar companies that actively contribute to climate change mitigation.
Our organisation is helping to support the Paris Climate Agreement and the Race to Net Zero by… Having an objective of reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. SDR Labelling:Not eligible to use label LiteratureFund HoldingsVoting Record |