Biodiversity
Sampo Group works to raise awareness on biodiversity and investigate how to take biodiversity into account in its insurance and investment activities.
Sampo Group’s guiding principles on climate, biodiversity, and the environment are defined in the Sampo Group Code of Conduct. The Code of Conduct is reviewed annually and approved by Sampo’s Board of Directors. In addition, each Group company has adopted supplementary policies and guidelines for their own purposes.
Sampo Group follows the development of regulation (e.g. Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive, CSRD), metrics, and tools, and strives to develop its own investment analysis and insurance operations in relation to biodiversity. The Group also monitors the progress of the Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures (TNFD) framework and the company’s abilities to report according to it.
Investment operations
Sampo Group has conducted a high-level assessment using ENCORE* to evaluate its sector-level exposure to nature-related impacts and dependencies in its investment portfolio. This assessment is necessary for the further evaluation of investee companies’ exposure to nature impacts and dependencies, as well as for the future development of the Group’s biodiversity investment framework, including possible engagement activities with investees. Going forward, Sampo Group will evaluate the biodiversity impacts and dependencies of its portfolio on a regular basis.
* The ENCORE tool was developed by the ENCORE Partners (Global Canopy, UNEP FI and UNEP-WCMC) and first launched in 2018. Sampo Group used the October 2024 version of ENCORE in the assessment.
Scope and limitations
The assessment includes Sampo Group’s direct equity and fixed income investments, for which a sector code (ISIC) was available. The coverage is approximately 78 per cent of the Group’s total investment portfolio.
ENCORE considers the impacts and dependencies on a sector level, which means that specific information related to the investee companies’ operations, geographical locations, and mitigation actions is not reflected in the assessment. Additionally, ENCORE currently only covers direct potential impacts and dependencies, meaning that the potential indirect impacts and dependencies related to the sectors’ upstream and downstream value chain are not considered in the assessment.
Results
According to the assessment, approximately 11.7 per cent of Sampo Group’s investments are in sectors that have potentially high or very high impact on at least one pressure point of biodiversity loss. The sectors in Sampo Group’s investment portfolio with potential high or very high impacts are manufacturing, energy production and supply, construction, transportation and storage, mining and quarrying, and agriculture, forestry and fishing. The most material pressure points for these sectors are emissions of toxic soil and water pollutants, emissions of greenhouse gas (GHG) and non-GHG air pollutants, disturbances (e.g. noise, light), and generation and release of solid waste.
According to the assessment, approximately 12.2 per cent of Sampo Group’s investments are in sectors that are potentially highly or very highly dependent on at least one ecosystem service. The sectors in Sampo Group’s investment portfolio with potential high or very high impacts on biodiversity loss are also potentially highly or very highly dependent on at least one ecosystem service. Additional sectors in Sampo Group’s portfolio, which are potentially highly or very highly dependent on at least one ecosystem service, include real estate activities, accommodation and food service activities, and administrative and support service activities (rental and leasing activities). The most material ecosystem services for these sectors include water supply, water flow regulation, soil and sediment retention, flood control and visual amenity services.
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