How we have applied our knowledge and skills
APG has built up a wealth of pensions knowledge over the past century. We want to help society with this knowledge and experience.
Much of our attention is devoted to elaborating the new pension system and to sustaining our investment portfolio that we manage on behalf of our clients. People do get older; we start to work differently and retire later. Job roles are changing due to digitalization. The climate issue is demanding that we become more sustainable more quickly and smarter. We want to use our knowledge to contribute towards the social debate regarding the future pension system, which revolves around aspects such as collectivity and solidarity. We are consciously choosing not to sit on the sidelines with our inclusion policy but wish to use our influence as a major investor to improve businesses and sectors. We are happy to engage in dialogue and debate about this with all types of stakeholders. That is why we share our expertise with pension funds, social partners, and politicians.
We share our knowledge and communicate easily with the outside world via our website APG.NL, so that everyone can find their way and get some answers. We write in comprehensible language about new developments and potential. We also give space to voices from the outside, for example in our podcasts.
Peter Strikwerda: Head of Digitalization & Innovation at Asset Management
“We are looking for people who can work with data, who want to make an impact, want to work on their personal development and who are looking for a better work-life balance. People who can see that what is on our agenda makes a difference in social terms. And we offer them a nice working environment, safety, and room for development.”
We also help participants to get a grip on their pension by applying our knowledge. We provide them with insight into developments and their consequences for their personal situation. We have developed Clear Overview & Insight and the Personal Pension Pot in conjunction with the pension funds. The number of participants with insight into their income for later has increased marginally to 1,995,000 in 2021 compared to 1,965,000 in 2020 and the number of participants who have insight into pension assets has increased slightly to 1,040,000 compared to 1,015,000 in 2020.
We want to be a frontrunner in the field of sustainable investment on behalf of our clients. We have mapped out the risks and opportunities of the climate transition for thirty sectors in which we are investing, and which are based on different scenarios. The Climate Portfolio Screen (CPS) combines an external perspective with the in-house expertise of our asset management portfolio managers. For our real estate portfolio, we have compiled a database with information from various sources that allows us to assess the risks related to extreme weather conditions and rising sea levels for tens of thousands of buildings. This is how we identify climate risks and issue the Responsible Investment Report.
Digital applications soon come into view in the Groeifabriek on the Brightlands Smart Services Campus in Heerlen. The innovation here combines all kinds of technology together such as artificial intelligence, big data, cloud computing and machine learning. This innovation provides a number of opportunities. We will help our funds implement their strategy with technology developed in-house.
The knowledge and skills of our employees are a prized asset. This chapter shows how we work together and how we report on the efforts to adapt motivation, flexibility, and resilience at this moment in time, in which a lot is undergoing change. We are focusing on solid and qualified employees who specialize in digitalization so that we are ready for the new pensions system. And this is not easy in a flooded employment market.