GEPF honoured for responsible investment reporting

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The Government Employees' Pension Fund (GEPF) was recently honoured with the Commended, Best Responsible Investment Report by a Large Fund at the annual RI Reporting Awards 2014 in London.

GEPF's 2013 Annual Report had close to ten pages of reporting on the ESG implementation activities of its team led by ESG manager Adrian Bertrand. Judges said that the strongest aspects of the report are the clarity of its commitment to responsible investment and to economic development in South Africa and Africa more generally.

South Africa's pension fund's report was competing against others from Australia, Canada, France, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway and Sweden for the prestigious award in the large pension funds sector - those with assets under management greater than €25bn. GEPF shared the commended honour with the Canadian Pension Plan Investment Board.

Strategic objective

GEPF chairperson, Dr Renosi Mokate, accepted the commendation on behalf of GEPF and said it was an affirmation of the Fund's commitment to responsible investment. "One of the strategic objectives of GEPF is to be a leader in responsible investing," she said. "It has, therefore, systematically integrated all material ESG issues into its traditional financially driven investment decision-making processes."

The RI Reporting Awards are based on proprietary research of more than 1,000 pension funds' reports across the globe to which a series of objective indicators are applied. A high-level judging panel then ranks the short-listed reports on a final qualitative basis.