Responsible investing is intelligent investing
Whether you're driven by personal or stakeholder values, aim to mitigate risk or need to comply with regulation - our approach to responsible investing integrates what matters most to you.
Four beliefs
A sound awareness of environmental, social and governance (ESG) factors and a robust process are integral for responsible investing. In our view, they can help deliver strong investment returns and meet objectives over the long-term.
BELIEF
1
ESG factors
ESG factors impact security prices. These factors can vary by company, industry, and region and their importance can vary through time.
BELIEF
2
A deep understanding
A deep understanding of how ESG factors impact security prices is value-adding to a skilful investment process.
BELIEF
3
Embedding ESG
Embedding ESG considerations into a firm's culture and processes improves the likelihood of prolonged and successful investing.
BELIEF
4
Active ownership
Active ownership of securities is an effective tool for improving investment outcomes.
We believe responsible investing and performance can be complementary.
Our responsible investing approach aims to capture the right exposure without jeopardizing return.

Accessing energy transition opportunities in private markets
We explore how private markets can provide a robust channel for targeting positive impact on environmental and social causes, including climate change.
Gain more insightPutting beliefs into practice
We incorporate responsible investing in our investment manager evaluation process, our portfolio management, our advisory services, and through implementing proprietary solutions to meet client needs.
Portfolio management
Managers and products are evaluated, ranked and surveyed one by one. As such, our portfolio managers select managers and products with full knowledge of their ESG metrics and how it is implemented.
ESG research and metrics
We research and report active manager ranks and metrics and have developed proprietary metrics for our direct investing capabilities.
Culture and processes
Sustainable practices are incorporated into our own business just as we ask our managers to do.
Active
ownership
We believe voting is a part of a share’s value-creation process. We are active owners of all our holdings and focus on specific ESG actions within our engagement activities.
Climate Change Policy
Russell Investments' policy is to research, measure, report and consider climate change risk and opportunities as integral parts of our investing practice, our active ownership, and our business operations. Our measures, reported metrics, and consideration of climate risk and opportunities are integrated into our sub-advisor research and selection, portfolio management, advice, proxy voting and shareholder engagement, and day-to-day business.
Related blog posts
Hear from our experts on the issues our clients care about
October 6, 2020
2020 ESG manager survey: Turning up the volume
Yoshie Phillips
Have ESG factors increased or decreased in importance? Our 2020 annual ESG survey of active managers assesses the integration of ESG considerations in investment processes among equity, fixed income and private markets managers.
August 26, 2020
How climate change can impact investments
Mihir Tirodkar
With multiple future scenarios as to how climate change may play out, there are also multiple potential consequences in store for investments. This post takes a detailed look at climate-change risk management.
July 27, 2020
ESG risks are financial risks
Leola Ross, Ningning Wang
We believe integrating ESG factors into an investment practice is value-adding. Here's why.
Related insights
REPORTS
Principles for Responsible Investment (PRI)
Overview of the 2020 PRI assessment of Russell Investments
2020 PRI Assessment Report
2020 Transparency Report
PRI Assessment Methodology
Policy documents
Climate change policyProxy voting
Proxy voting guidelines
Proxy and engagement report
Engagement policy
RESEARCH AND BEST PRACTICES
Whitepapers
2020 Annual ESG Manager Survey
Moving the climate focus beyond carbon and on to water
Materiality matters
Decarbonization 2.0
Best practices
How we integrate ESGBest practices for responsible investing
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