CSR | Insight Investment

Climate change requires our attention as we seek to navigate the issues to fulfil our fiduciary obligation to our clients. To protect our clients' interests, we need to consider how climate change could impact their investments, and to ensure portfolios remain resilient. However, stating the exact quantum and timings of the potential impacts with any accuracy remains a huge challenge.

• We participate in industry groups as part of our work managing systemic climate risks.
• We developed our first climate risk ratings in 2017 as a comprehensive ranking of fixed income corporate bond issuers that enabled better engagement activity with companies. In 2020, to improve understanding of the key risks that climate change poses and further develop our offering in sustainable strategies, we expanded the scope of the ratings to create two scores for each company; one for its transitional risks and one for its physical risks.
• Our proprietary Prime climate risk ratings include data for 15 climate-related issues. For more information click here. 
• Since 2022 Insight has published a climate change report aligned to the recommendations from the Task Force on Climate-Related Disclosures (TCFD). The report includes information on how Insight views climate change and takes it into account, and also how these views are applied within clients’ investment strategies as well as initial scenario analysis looking at the potential impact of climate change on portfolios that Insight manages on behalf of clients. The report reflects extensive work internally on this key issue.
• We became a signatory to the Net Zero Asset Managers Initiative in early 2021. The initiative issued an update to its approach in October 2025, and Insight is assessing this. Our focus remains on delivering the best outcomes for our clients in the investment mandates we manage on their behalf, reflecting any applicable individual requirements. Please visit this page for more details of Insight’s net-zero ambition.
• Beyond considering climate risks as part of their core investment approach, some clients are looking to pursue net-zero targets. To help these clients invest in line with their net-zero goals, Insight has created ratings to categorise corporate and sovereign issuers according to the extent of their commitment to and alignment with achieving net zero by 2050. For more information click here.

• In 2025 Insight reaffirmed its support of the Ten Principles of the United Nations Global Compact in the areas of human rights, labour, environment and anti-corruption.

• Insight has proactively engaged with the UK government on behalf of our UK defined benefit (DB) pension scheme clients, engaging with policymakers and industry bodies through dialogue and consultation submissions. Our view is that DB schemes are the ideal vehicle to ensure the best financial outcome for their members. We have been vocal in the media and in our communications to policymakers about our belief that trustees and sponsors of UK DB schemes should be encouraged and enabled to run on their schemes for the long term, and to invest and make use of their surplus assets to realise other wide-ranging benefits. This could help reinvigorate UK capital markets and also potentially be used to bolster defined contribution pension schemes. It could also generate sizeable tax revenues for the government in the order of tens of billions of pounds. This is all achievable while protecting and enhancing the security of pensions for members and the interests of corporate sponsors. We continue to engage with the government, peers and other stakeholders on the issues. More information is available on our DB reform campaign site here.

   

Insight helped to drive the national conversation on proposed reforms to the UK’s Retail Prices Index (RPI) – reforms which have significant detrimental implications for millions of pensioners.

• In November 2019 we published a detailed white paper and open letter urging pension schemes, insurers, advisers and asset managers to engage with policymakers about the future consultation.
• We launched a dedicated website to connect with a broader audience of stakeholders and collate news articles in a single resource.

Our then CEO, Abdallah Nauphal, wrote to the Chancellor and the Chair of the UK Statistics Authority urging that the consultation deadline, then set for 22 April 2020, be extended given the unprecedented backdrop caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. The deadline was subsequently pushed back to 21 August 2020. Our CEO also met with Stephen Timms MP, Chair of the Work and Pensions Committee, to discuss the issue.

Insight played a very active role in the interest-rate benchmark reform process, which had implications for financial markets worldwide as well as for our clients. In 2018 we were invited to join the UK Sterling Risk-Free Reference Rates (RFR) Working Group as it was expanded to include a broader group of participants, including investment management firms. The LIBOR transition completed in October 2024, ending a multi-year project to replace the benchmark rate across a range of countries.

The introduction and implementation of central clearing for derivatives under EMIR in 2012 had significant implications, particularly for pension schemes in the UK and Europe, which account for the majority of Insight’s AUM. In collaboration with pension scheme stakeholders, Insight actively engaged with policymakers and regulators over these issues. Central clearing has since been introduced in the EU, where its implications are more limited overall. Our work has more recently focused on the UK, where central clearing would have had broad implications for pension scheme portfolios once a temporary exemption expired.

In January 2025 the UK government announced that it would remove any further time limit on the clearing exemption for UK defined benefit pension schemes, meaning the exemption would no longer expire in June 2025. This shift from a temporary to a long-term solution has provided greater certainty for schemes. Insight has been vocal about the benefits of such a solution since central clearing was first introduced in 2012. We believe an indefinite exemption of pension schemes from clearing is in the best interests of both pension schemes and the UK economy. Mandatory clearing would have forced schemes to hold more in cash to enable them to clear, rather than to allocate their investments prudently and in pursuit of their objectives. Greater freedom to invest also retains the opportunity to boost the economy.

Colleagues take part in fundraising activities in support of a number of charities globally with a common theme of meeting basic needs. Colleagues in our offices vote on local charities to support. In the UK, the London office supports The Felix Project, which fights hunger and food waste, and the Manchester office supports Wood Street Mission, which works with low-income families across Manchester and Salford. The New York office supports Crossroads Community Services, which focuses on hunger and homelessness. The Boston and San Francisco offices support, respectively, The Greater Boston Food Bank and the SF Marin Food Bank.

This is our corporate social responsibility charity committee. It comprises members from across the business who meet monthly to lead the development and implementation of our CSR strategy. Its mission is to promote team camaraderie through giving, awareness-raising, engagement and volunteering opportunities. 

Insight’s Community Impact Programme encompasses colleague donation and community volunteering. All permanent employees are entitled to take two volunteering days a year, partnering interests or skills with a broad selection of charities.

For employees and initiatives in scope, our parent company BNY provides dollar matching on team and individual fundraising projects and volunteering events, including donations via salary sacrifice and board service.

Our work with external partners helps us to address the societal inequities that can make it more challenging for talented people from disadvantaged backgrounds to break into our industry. See a full list of our partners on the Inclusion Strategy page here.

They include RedSTART, a charity which provides financial education to help transform the life chances of young people in the UK, and the Progress Together initiative, which works to improve socio-economic diversity in UK financial services. Our graduate and internship programmes work with the Bright Network initiative to identify candidates from under-represented groups. Insight also hosts an internship programme operated by University College London, where MSc students in Computational Statistics and Machine Learning complete their thesis with projects proposed by external companies.

We are very proud to work in partnership with the Royal Academy as the lead sponsor of its Summer Exhibition, the world’s largest open submission contemporary art show. 2026 will be our 20th year as sponsor and the 258th consecutive year in which the RA has mounted the Summer Exhibition. This open, inclusive and democratic show supports the artistic community, art education and provides a display of creativity and joy for the public. The 2025 show was coordinated by internationally acclaimed architect and Royal Academician Farshid Moussavi and offered a diverse array of contemporary works including prints, paintings, films, photography, sculpture, and architectural works.

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Insight is very alert to the threat posed by criminals who masquerade as authorised investment firms in their attempts to defraud investors.

Please visit our Attempted Fraud page for more information about our activities plus guidance to help investors remain vigilant.