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Status under the EU Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation (SFDR) – Janus Henderson Global Investment Grade Bond Fund

Janus Henderson Global Investment Grade Bond Fund

A. Summary

The Fund is categorised as one which meets the provisions set out in Article 8 of SFDR as a product which promotes environmental and/or social characteristics.

This financial product promotes environmental or social characteristics but does not have as its objective sustainable investment.

The Fund promotes climate change mitigation and support for the UNGC Principles (which cover matters including human rights, labour, corruption, and environmental pollution). The Fund also seeks to avoid investments in certain activities with the potential to cause harm to human health and wellbeing by applying binding exclusions. The Fund does not use a reference benchmark to attain its environmental or social characteristics.

The binding elements of the investment strategy described below are implemented as exclusionary screens within the Sub-Investment Adviser’s order management system utilising third-party data provider(s) on an ongoing basis.

The good governance practices of investee companies are assessed prior to making an investment and periodically thereafter in accordance with the Sustainability Risk Policy (“Policy”).

In addition, the Sub-Investment Adviser is a signatory to the UN Principles for Responsible Investment (UNPRI).

A minimum of 80% of the investments of the financial product are used to meet the environmental or social characteristics promoted by the Fund.

The sustainability indicators used to measure the attainment of each of the environmental or social characteristics promoted by this financial product are:

  • Carbon - Carbon Intensity Scope 1&2.
  • Overall UN GC Compliance Status.
  • ESG Exclusionary screens - see “G. Methodologies for environmental or social characteristics?” below for details on the exclusions.

The Sub-Investment Adviser applies screens to exclude direct investment in corporate issuers based on their involvement in certain activities.

The Fund also applies the Firmwide Exclusions Policy, which includes controversial weapons, as detailed under the Prospectus section entitled “Investment Restrictions” in the Prospectus.

The Fund has chosen MSCI’s ESG Manager as its primary data source for ESG (Environmental, Social and Governance) research. Where coverage gaps are identified, specialist ESG Data vendors or inhouse research may be used to complement the ESG research.

Positions allocated may be estimated or reported data received from the external data vendor. For positions not covered by the external data provider, proprietary research may be used.

The appropriateness of the evidence provided is assessed by an independent body at JHI.
The JHI Sustainability Risk Policy sets out the firmwide ESG Integration Principles, Sustainable Investment Principles and Baseline Exclusions applied to investee companies.

Each Investment desk completes their own due diligence processes ahead of making any investment decisions within their Article 8 funds, using internal and external tools and research.

Details of JHI’s approach to Engagement can be found in the ‘ESG Investment Policy’ published under the ‘ESG Resource Library’ on the Janus Henderson website.

The Firm supports a number of stewardship codes and broader initiatives around the world and is a signatory to the UK stewardship code.

B. No Sustainable Investment Objective

This financial product promotes environmental or social characteristics but does not have as its objective sustainable investment.

C. Environmental or social characteristics of the financial product

The Fund promotes climate change mitigation and support for the UNGC Principles (which cover matters including human rights, labour, corruption, and environmental pollution). The Fund also seeks to avoid investments in certain activities with the potential to cause harm to human health and wellbeing by applying binding exclusions.  The Fund does not use a reference benchmark to attain its environmental or social characteristics.

D. Investment Strategy

This Fund seeks an overall income with the potential for capital growth through exposure to investment grade bonds. Investors should read this section in conjunction with the Fund’s investment strategy (as set out in the supplement for the Fund under the heading “Investment Objective and Policies”).

The binding elements of the investment strategy described below are implemented as exclusionary screens, which are coded into the compliance module of the Sub-Investment Adviser’s order management system utilising third-party data provider(s) on an ongoing basis.

The exclusionary screens are implemented on both a pre- and post-trade basis enabling the Sub-Investment Adviser to block any proposed transactions in an excluded security and to identify any changes to the status of holdings when third-party data is periodically updated

E. Proportion of investments

A minimum of 80% of the investments of the financial product are used to meet the environmental or social characteristics promoted by the Fund. The remaining investments are used for hedging or relate to cash held as ancillary liquidity. Other assets may include cash or cash equivalents, investments in sovereign issuers, securitised assets, derivatives for the purposes of efficient portfolio management, or derivatives for investment purposes other than those used to gain exposure to direct issuers.

All investments of the financial product that are used to meet the environmental characteristics promoted by the financial product are direct investments.

F. Monitoring of environmental or social characteristics

The sustainability indicators used to measure the attainment of each of the environmental or social characteristics promoted by this financial product are:

  • Carbon - Carbon Intensity Scope 1&2
  • Overall UN GC Compliance Status
  • ESG Exclusionary screens - see Methodologies for environmental or social characteristics?” below for details on the exclusions.

 The Front Office Controls & Governance team provide ongoing assurance that investment products are managed in line with documented sustainability commitments. Financial Risk review and challenge investment management in light of ESG-related risks, alongside traditional market risk metrics, and embed sustainability risk into the risk profiles. Investment Compliance ensure that ESG-related activities are managed in line with regulatory requirements and expectations, and considered within our compliance framework.

G. Methodologies for environmental or social characteristics

The Sub-Investment Adviser applies screens to exclude direct investment in corporate issuers based on their involvement in certain activities. Specifically, issuers are excluded if they derive more than 10% of their revenue from oil sands extraction, arctic oil and gas, thermal coal extraction, tobacco, or adult entertainment. Issuers are also excluded if they are deemed to have failed to comply with the UNGC Principles (which cover matters including human rights, labour, corruption, and environmental pollution).

The Fund also applies the Firmwide Exclusions Policy, which includes controversial weapons, as detailed under the Prospectus section entitled “Investment Restrictions” in the Prospectus.

The Sub-Investment Adviser may include positions in the Fund that, based on third-party data or screens, appear to fail the above criteria, where the Sub-Investment Adviser believes that the third-party data is insufficient or inaccurate.

For the purposes of the AMF doctrine, the extra-financial analysis or rating is higher than:

  1. 90% for equities issued by large capitalisation companies whose registered office is located in "developed" countries, debt securities and money market instruments with an investment grade credit rating, sovereign debt issued by developed countries;
  2. 75% for equities issued by large capitalisations whose registered office is located in "emerging" countries, equities issued by small and medium capitalisations, debt securities and money market instruments with a high yield credit rating and sovereign debt issued by "emerging" countries.

Investors should note that a specific index is not designated as a reference benchmark to determine whether the Fund is aligned with the environmental characteristics promoted.

H. Data sources and processing

JHI has chosen MSCI’s ESG Manager as its primary data source for ESG (Environmental, Social and Governance) research.

Where coverage gaps are identified, specialist ESG Data vendors or inhouse research may be used to complement the ESG research. This ensures consistent data and methodologies are used given an ESG measure per security type and hence can be compared correctly in the portfolio construction process.

JHI has built a centralised proprietary research alignment process; The central research alignment process aligns data at three different levels

  1. Entity Level,
  2. Position Level, and
  3. Fund Level.

The research alignment and mapping capability is critical to JHI's ESG (Environmental, Social and Governance) methodology, as we recognize a security could inherit the ESG information from the issuing legal entity, however, some ESG risks will be instrument specific.

JHI applies a series of Data Quality rules to ensure the integrity of the data being ingested into the central research alignment solution. JHI data that is not aligned correctly to the definition as provided by the data vendor is not ingested into the central cloud-based data warehouse and exceptions are raised. These exceptions are monitored and remediated by a central support team. Remediation includes challenging the data provider or internal operations supporting internally managed Systems of Records. Where appropriate the Data Owner responsible and accountable for the data is notified through the internal Data Governance process to resolve outstanding exceptions.

JHI receives weekly automated data feeds from external ESG Data vendors, which are ingested into a cloud-based data warehouse. Once the data is ingested and Data Quality checks have been performed the raw data is mapped to JHI’s internal taxonomy structure. This ensures that all ESG data from the data warehouse is made available consistently across all downstream JHI applications supporting the different stages in the investment process.

The proportion of data for a Financial Product that is estimated constantly evolving.

Positions allocated may be estimated or reported data received from the external data vendor. For positions not covered by the external data provider, proprietary research may be used. This could range from proprietary research alignment against the external data vendor to written confirmation from the issuing entity that it aligns to the binding criteria. The appropriateness of the evidence provided is assessed by an independent body at JHI.

 I. Limitations to methodologies and data

Data coverage is directly driven by the coverage of the underlying ESG Data Provider.

JHI’s internal data structure provides sufficient flexibility to incorporate proprietary evidence or adapt evaluations to future requirements.

JHI is aware of data gaps in ESG Research for non-traditional asset classes compared to mainstream asset classes such as equities and debt instruments.

 J. Due diligence

As detailed in the above ‘Methodologies for Environmental and Social Characteristics’ section, the Sub-Investment Adviser applies screens to exclude direct investment in Prison Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITS). Companies are also excluded if they are deemed to have failed to comply with the UN Global Compact Principles (which cover matters including human rights, labour, corruption, and environmental pollution).

The Sub-Investment Adviser actively engages with companies to encourage the adoption of science-based emission targets, or a verified commitment to adopt science-based emissions targets1. The Sub-Investment Adviser commits to a minimum of 10% of companies within the portfolio having approved or committed targets and will monitor the progress of those companies against those targets.

The Fund also applies the Firmwide Exclusions Policy, which includes controversial weapons, as detailed under the Prospectus section entitled “Investment Restrictions”.

For the purposes of the AMF doctrine, the extra-financial analysis or rating is higher than:

  1. 90% for equities issued by large capitalisation companies whose registered office is located in "developed" countries, debt securities and money market instruments with an investment grade credit rating, sovereign debt issued by developed countries;
  2. 75% for equities issued by large capitalisations whose registered office is located in "emerging" countries, equities issued by small and medium capitalisations, debt securities and money market instruments with a high yield credit rating and sovereign debt issued by "emerging" countries.

The Sub-Investment Adviser may include positions in the Fund that, based on third-party data or screens, appear to fail the above criteria, where the Sub-Investment Adviser believes that the third-party data may be insufficient or inaccurate.

The JHI Sustainability Risk Policy sets out the firmwide ESG Integration Principles, Sustainable Investment Principles and Baseline Exclusions applied to investee companies. These exclusions are based on classifications provided by third-party data ESG data providers. This classification is subject to an investment research override in cases where sufficient evidence exists that the third-party field is not accurate or appropriate.

Each Investment desk completes their own due diligence processes ahead of making any investment decisions within their Article 8 funds, using internal and external tools and research. The Front Office Controls & Governance team provide ongoing assurance that investment products are managed in line with documented sustainability commitments. Financial Risk review and challenge investment management in light of ESG-related risks, alongside traditional market risk metrics. Investment Compliance ensure that ESG-related activities are managed in line with regulatory requirements and expectations and considered within our compliance framework.

K. Engagement Policies

In addition to the binding elements of the investment strategy described above, stewardship forms an integral and natural part of Janus Henderson’s long-term, active approach to investment management. Details of JHI’s approach to Engagement can be found in the ‘ESG Investment Policy’ published under the ‘ESG Resource Library’ on the Janus Henderson website.

The Firm supports a number of stewardship codes and broader initiatives around the world and is a signatory to the UK stewardship code.

I. Designated Reference Benchmark

No index has been designated as a reference benchmark to meet the environmental or social characteristics promoted by this Article 8 Financial Product.

Principal adverse impacts (PAI)

The Legal entity identifier number (LEI) for the product is: 5493002EQQLOB9HNG162

Adverse Sustainability Indicator Metric How is PAI considered
Greenhouse gas emissions GHG emissions Scope 1 GHG emissions Exclusionary screen
Scope 2 GHG emissions Exclusionary screen
  Carbon footprint Carbon footprint Exclusionary screen
GHG Intensity of investee companies HG intensity of investee companies Exclusionary screen
  Exposure to companies active in the fossil fuel sector Share of investments in companies active in the fossil fuel sector Exclusionary screen
Social and employee matters Share of investments in investee companies involved in the manufacture or selling of controversial weapons Exposure to controversial weapons (anti-personnel mines, cluster munitions, chemical weapons and biological weapons) Exclusionary screen
  Violations of UN Global Compact principles and Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises Share of investments in investee companies that have been involved in violations of the UNGC principles or OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises Exclusionary screen


1
 This was effective as of 31 October 2022 and periodic reporting will commence from 1 January 2023 for the first reference period from 31 October 2022.

'Where the translated version of this disclosure text differs from the English version, the original English version prevails'