Marco Keim on Sustainability

Marco keim on sustainability

	Marco Keim, the Management Board member responsible for Sustainability, gives his view on the growing importance of environmental, social and governance issues to AEGON and the vital role customers are playing in helping shape the company’s long-term strategy.
	“We want to apply basic principles of responsible investment to our entire portfolio.”

For a financial services company like AEGON, how important is sustainability?

Extremely important. It’s about how you manage your business, and how you build trust not only among your customers and shareholders, but also in the wider community. These issues – how we treat our customers and employees, how we invest, how we protect the value of our brand – are becoming more and more important.

This is a very broad topic. What is AEGON’s approach to sustainability?

We have businesses in more than twenty countries around the world – and something like 40 million customers. That’s a big responsibility. Traditionally, we’ve always been a decentralized company. Now, we’re moving toward a more integrated approach – in sustainability, as well as in other aspects of our activities. That means taking into account different cultures within the organization and finding a way of working more closely together, which admittedly won’t always be easy. In my view, it’s one of the big challenges for the next few years. It also means listening more to our stakeholders. That’s why we now organize a regular stakeholder review; we want to hear what our shareholders, business partners and our customers have to say.

You mention customers. What role do they play in sustainability?

I think they’re critical. What we’ve seen over the past several years is a very significant shift in behavior. People are having to take more responsibility for their pensions. And they’re turning to the private sector – to companies like AEGON – for support. We have to make sure we’re there to help them. And that means not only providing long-term financial products that are effective, transparent and easy to understand, but also ensuring people have the information they need to make the right decisions for themselves and their families – particularly important during times of uncertainty, as we saw with the global financial crisis. We already help fund financial literacy and education programs in the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, the United States and elsewhere. This is an area directly related to our expertise, and we’d like to do a lot more.

AEGON is one of the world’s largest institutional investors. With investments, there are always difficult choices to be made…

At the end of 2009, we had just over EUR 360 billion in revenue-generating investments. Part of that is for our own account, but most is invested on behalf of our customers and policyholders, so we take our responsibilities very seriously. This is an area where we think we can make a difference. We already have a number of successful funds – especially in the United Kingdom – that offer socially-responsible investments.

But now we want to go a step further. We want to apply basic principles of responsible investment to our entire portfolio. And we want to make sure we engage regularly and consistently with those companies in which we invest so that together we can tackle areas of concern – whether they’re to do with the weapons industry, which has been a matter for discussion in the Netherlands in recent months, or child labor, or human rights, or pollution, or simply good governance.

Clearly, this is a very complex subject and we have to balance a number of often conflicting considerations, including the responsibility we have to our clients. Coming up with the right answers to questions might take some time, but we have now approved a plan to develop principles in this area that will eventually cover all our businesses.

What about the environment? This is one of the major issues of our time…

It is. And – though we are not a significant polluter – we recognize that we have a role to play, and that we must do what we can to lessen the impact of our operations on the environment. In many of our offices, we already have initiatives in place aimed at reducing our consumption of electricity, water and paper and, just as importantly, our business travel. In 2010, we’ll be stepping up some of these efforts. Cutting back on unnecessary consumption not only helps the planet, it also reduces costs, which in turn benefits the company, its shareholders, its business partners – and, ultimately of course, its customers.

Marco Keim

Chief Executive Officer of AEGON The Netherlands
and member of the Management Board

AEGON’s sustainability strategy

AEGON believes that business success is not incompatible with respect for the environment, human rights and the broader communities in which it operates. Indeed, the company recognizes that creating a sustainable business means taking into account the interests of all its stakeholders, including customers, employees, business partners and investors.

AEGON also believes that it can make a valuable contribution to the communities in which it operates, not only as a provider of long-term financial products and services, but also as a responsible employer and investor. AEGON’s long-term objective is to grow its businesses profitably and sustainably.

The global insurance industry plays an important role in helping communities around the world deal with some of the biggest economic and social challenges of the 21st century, including aging populations, climate change, sustainable development, the need for responsible investment and demand for greater financial literacy. AEGON’s Sustainability strategy and initiatives help strengthen the company’s reputation among customers, investors and the wider public, as well as supporting its business objectives and the value of the AEGON brand.

For more information about AEGON’s Sustainability strategy and initiatives, please refer to the company’s 2009 Sustainability Report.