Schroders

At over 200 years old, Schroders is one of the last remaining independent fund managers in the City. We have a global network and a total of €204.5bn under management (as at June 2007). Our clients include local and public authorities, pension funds, charities, corporations, insurance companies, high net worth individuals and unit trust holders.

Schroders' primary investment objective is to achieve optimal financial returns for our clients (within agreed risk parameters and constraints). Providing that this objective is not compromised in the process, we do, however believe that it is also possible to develop a framework that, in the interests of our clients, allows a broader range of considerations, including environmental and social issues to be taken into account when selecting investments. Indeed the idea that quality companies, operating at an environmentally and socially sustainable level, are more likely to survive and deliver long-term shareholder value suggests that the analysis and understanding of non-financial criteria will offer additional assistance in identifying the long term winners.

Schroders has adopted an engagement approach to SRI which we use to aid our analysis of a company's corporate responsibility performance, to develop our understanding of the issues a company and a sector may face, to provide feedback and to make suggestions for change where we believe that these will reduce risk to shareholder value. We feedback the information from our engagement process back to analysts and fund managers through various mechanisms to aid in the integration of the consideration of environmental, social and governance issues into the investment process.

Schroders' SRI policy applies to its Pan-European equity holdings. In addition we also manage €6.3bn under various ethical constraints on behalf of our charity, private and religious clients (as of December 2006).