We will not invest in companies involved in the following activities

Te Ahumairangi consider the following activities to be fundamentally unethical, and will therefore avoid investing in these activities:

• Manufacture of nuclear, chemical, or biological weapons.
• Manufacture of cluster munitions.
• Manufacture of automatically-triggered landmines.
• Manufacture of tobacco-based products (other than tobacco patches or similar products intended to help people overcome tobacco addiction). 
• Manufacture of automatic or semi-automatic weapons for civilian use.
• Corruption / bribery. We will not invest in companies where it appears that the board or senior management are tolerating bribery or other corrupt behaviours by company officials.

Activities that we will pay particular attention to, due to their potential to cause harm

Te Ahumairangi has identified the following activities as having the potential to cause significant social, health, or environmental harm, and will therefore attempt to understand whether companies operating in these areas are behaving in ways that reduce or disregard the potential for harm. We will avoid investing in companies that are behaving in ways that we believe are irresponsible with respect to the potential harm:

• Production and marketing of alcohol or recreational cannabis.
  We will avoid companies that we believe market these products irresponsibly, including marketing that encourages excess consumption or consumption by people under the age of 18.
• Gambling.
  We expect gambling companies to operate in a regulated environment, and to take measures to reduce problem gambling and money laundering.
• Weapons.
  We expect defence companies to avoid producing weapons that are likely to cause ongoing harm or result in significant civilian casualties, and to avoid selling weapons to regimes that have a track record of using weapons for genocide, territorial expansion, or other unprovoked attacks.
• Mining / resource extraction.
  We expect companies engaged in mining or similar activities to make a significant effort to avoid harm to the environment and to avoid harm to nearby communities.
• Fossil fuels.
  When investing in companies that extract fossil fuels or use fossil fuels for the production of electricity or other energy-intensive industries, we will seek to avoid those companies that are applying capital expenditures to operations that will have a high ratio of greenhouse gases produced relative to energy output.
• Employing vulnerable people.
  We will pay particular attention to employment practices for companies employing people in poorly regulated labour markets, and we will avoid investing in companies that employ children or engage in potentially exploitive practices (e.g. excessively long working hours, employing undocumented workers, holding on to employee travel documents, or housing staff in onsite curfewed dormitories).

We recognise that despite our intention to place close attention to these areas, we may sometimes fail to identify instances of poor corporate behaviours by companies operating in these sectors. We therefore welcome feedback from clients on any poor behaviours that they are aware of by companies that we invest in.