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Scottish Widows joins forces with sustainable investing leader Robeco
Eva Cairns
Scottish Widows, Head of Responsible Investment
20th January 2025
Scottish Widows has announced a new strategic partnership with leading asset manager Robeco to take its responsible investment approach to the next level.
Robeco was selected by Scottish Widows, for its exceptional sustainability research capabilities and close alignment with the pension provider’s responsible investing priorities. The unique partnership will also help shape and enhance Scottish Widows’ broader future investment offering and approach.
Launch of exclusive co-created indices
The focus of the partnership will be on two initial priorities in 2025, with the first milestone to co-design and create new customised equities indices in developed and emerging markets, with responsible investment principles front and centre.
Using Robeco’s specialist frameworks and expertise, the indices will feature ESG tilts underpinned by the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals and a range of forward-looking climate measures, with Scottish Widows’ exclusions policy also applied in full. The bespoke Robeco-Scottish Widows indices will be deployed across Scottish Widows’ investment offering for UK pension savers, with responsible investing fitted as standard.
Leveraging Robeco’s frameworks and research for joint thought leadership, the pension provider will also work closely with Robeco’s sustainable investing centre of excellence to co-publish analysis and papers on priority themes.
This will further enhance Scottish Widows’ responsible investment approach on topics such as the energy transition, nature and deforestation, leveraging Robeco’s expertise including its climate traffic light framework for assessing climate alignment. This will also help shape Scottish Widows’ Climate Action Plan which will be published later this year.
“We’ve been working hard behind the scenes on enhancing our responsible investing strategy and we’re excited to be working closely with Robeco to take this to the next level.
“By pooling our collective expertise and leveraging Robeco’s depth of research and centre of excellence, we can innovate at pace and deliver a unique set of indices for UK workplace pension savers with responsible investing fitted as standard. This is a huge moment for us and commitment to our customers and their future.”
Eva Cairns, Scottish Widows’ Head of Responsible Investment
“We are delighted to be embarking on a strategic partnership with Scottish Widows, with a focus on bespoke Robeco-SW indices that leverage a number of our proprietary sustainable investment frameworks and innovations. We look forward to working closely with Scottish Widows – a valued strategic partner – to expand the scope of our collaboration in 2025 and beyond.”
Joop Huij, Head of Robeco Indices
About Scottish Widows
Founded in 1815, Scottish Widows is part of Lloyds Banking Group, the UK’s largest digital bank and financial services group. With more than £226bn assets under administration and 10 million customers, Scottish Widows’ award‐winning product range includes workplace and individual pensions, annuities, life cover, critical illness and income protection, as well as savings and investment products.
More than 2 million customers access Scottish Widows products and services through the Lloyds Bank and Scottish Widows apps, in addition to accessing directly through independent financial advisers. The Scottish Widows Platform is trusted by more than 18,000 advisers and 5,400 advice firms that manage the pensions and investments of almost 166,000 clients.