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AllianceBernstein: 2022 Global Slavery and Human Trafficking Statement and Report
AllianceBernstein: 2022 Global Slavery and Human Trafficking Statement and Report
Published 10-20-22
Submitted by AllianceBernstein
AllianceBernstein published its third Global Slavery and Human Trafficking Statement and Report in September 2022. It serves as an annual progress report describing the actions that we have taken during the year to address modern slavery in our operations, including our supply chain and employees, and our investment processes.
The 2022 Statement details our progress, including last year’s centralized ESG engagement campaign through which AB analysts engaged with 44 unique issuers on the topic of modern slavery. We also outline how we participate in modern slavery working groups and collaborative engagements and have signed important investor statements on the issue. Because we believe being a responsible investor starts with being a responsible corporate, AB identifies potential risks in our own operations. In our 2020-2021 due diligence questionnaire cycle, we mapped vendors’ responses to questions about modern slavery and categorized each vendor based on our analysis of their exposure to modern slavery. AB’s thought leadership on the topic of modern slavery has also grown, publishing several blogs and a white paper on the topic of modern slavery in the past year. AB’s reputation and public recognition as a leader in addressing modern slavery risks has evolved tremendously over the last year from receiving awards to growing participation in collaborative initiatives.
Additionally, the 2022 Statement includes a section on measuring effectiveness of how AB is managing and addressing modern slavery risk. The section includes quantitative statistics on the number of modern slavery engagements we’ve conducted year over year, the number of companies we’ve assigned a risk exposure rating to and our score on the Human Rights Foundation Corporate Equality Index. As of June 30, 2022, we have conducted 126 engagements on the topic of modern slavery cumulatively, we have assigned a risk exposure rating for over 800 companies in total, and we have scored 100% on the Human Rights Foundation Corporate Equality Index for the seventh consecutive year.
Finally, the Statement outlines our future plans in terms of leveraging our proprietary frameworks to consider modern slavery risks in our investments and continuing to research and engage issuers on modern slavery risks. AB’s 2022 ESG Engagement Campaign is focused on “action” engagements, which encourage issuers to set meaningful, measurable goals and targets related to the most material ESG issues to their businesses.
Please see the Slavery and Human Trafficking Statement and Report to learn more about how AB addresses modern slavery in our operations and investments.
AllianceBernstein
AllianceBernstein
AllianceBernstein (AB) is a leading global investment management firm that offers diversified investment services to institutional investors, individuals, and private wealth clients in major world markets.
To be effective stewards of our clients’ assets, we strive to invest responsibly—assessing, engaging on and integrating material issues, including environmental, social and governance (ESG) considerations into most of our actively managed strategies (approximately 79% of AB’s actively managed assets under management as of December 31, 2024).
Our purpose—to pursue insight that unlocks opportunity—describes the ethos of our firm. Because we are an active investment manager, differentiated insights drive our ability to design innovative investment solutions and help our clients achieve their investment goals. We became a signatory to the Principles for Responsible Investment (PRI) in 2011. This began our journey to formalize our approach to identifying responsible ways to unlock opportunities for our clients through integrating material ESG factors throughout most of our actively managed equity and fixed-income client accounts, funds and strategies. Material ESG factors are important elements in forming insights and in presenting potential risks and opportunities that can affect the performance of the companies and issuers that we invest in and the portfolios that we build. AB also engages issuers when it believes the engagement is in the best financial interest of its clients.
Our values illustrate the behaviors and actions that create our strong culture and enable us to meet our clients' needs. Each value inspires us to be better:
- Invest in One Another: At AB, there’s no “one size fits all” and no mold to break. We celebrate idiosyncrasy and make sure everyone’s voice is heard. We seek and include talented people with diverse skills, abilities and backgrounds, who expand our thinking. A mosaic of perspectives makes us stronger, helping us to nurture enduring relationships and build actionable solutions.
- Strive for Distinctive Knowledge: Intellectual curiosity is in our DNA. We embrace challenging problems and ask tough questions. We don’t settle for easy answers when we seek to understand the world around us—and that’s what makes us better investors and partners to our colleagues and clients. We are independent thinkers who go where the research and data take us. And knowing more isn’t the end of the journey, it’s the start of a deeper conversation.
- Speak with Courage and Conviction: Collegial debate yields conviction, so we challenge one another to think differently. Working together enables us to see all sides of an issue. We stand firmly behind our ideas, and we recognize that the world is dynamic. To keep pace with an ever changing world and industry, we constantly reassess our views and share them with intellectual honesty. Above all, we strive to seek and speak truth to our colleagues, clients and others as a trusted voice of reason.
- Act with Integrity—Always: Although our firm is comprised of multiple businesses, disciplines and individuals, we’re united by our commitment to be strong stewards for our people and our clients. Our fiduciary duty and an ethical mind-set are fundamental to the decisions we make.
As of December 31, 2024, AB had $792B in assets under management, $555B of which were ESG-integrated. Additional information about AB may be found on our website, www.alliancebernstein.com.
Learn more about AB’s approach to responsibility here.
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