Sustainability strategic outlook
To PREVI, sustainability is not just an aspect to be considered while managing its activities. To say that sustainability must be aligned to the businesses and strategies o the corporations does not mean either, in its entirety, the full meaning of that term and the importance with which it has been dealt with by PREVI's management and administration.
Sustainability is a determining factor in the operation of pension funds. The main objective of the operation of entities such as PREVI - pension fund benefits to be paid to the participants and their contribution to improve the lives of each one of them and respective dependents in the future - is inseparable from the different aspects involved in what we today call "sustainability". That premise has always been true. What is different nowadays is that besides our having considered more deeply that matter, its widespread dissemination throughout the society has allowed the creation of fundamental references, so that the commercial and civil organizations could deal with it more objectively.
PREVI understands that the adoption of socio-environmental criteria and practices may result in shunning some apparently lucrative opportunities in the short term that in one or other way might represent high risks (social, environmental, economic or cultural) to the community(ies) in which it operates. The conviction that it is necessary to try the confluence of its economic results with the social en environmental ones, directs PREVI to a performance that values long term sustainable results in detriment to questionable short term profitable opportunities involving potentially irreparable impacts and effects to the society in the future.
That standpoint has integrated all PREVI areas and during the last few years has evolved into important actions.
Since 2003, sustainability has been inserted into PREVI's Strategic Plan, included in its standing values, outlook for the future and strategic objectives. In time many lessons were learned and its activities, little by little, could be formalized and expanded.
PREVI launched in 2009 its Socio-environmental Responsibility Policy (Política de Responsabilidade Sociosambiental - PRS). The result of a process which counted with the ample participation of PREVI collaborators and of dialogues with different social groups, that document became the main corporate guideline to approach different aspects of sustainability within that entity's several operational areas as well as in its relationship with its different publics.
Parallel to the development of RSA policies, PREVI increased its participation in PRI -Princípios para Investimentos Responsáveis (Guidelines for Responsible Investments) - participating of its Board and implementing and coordinating the PRI net of Brazilian signatories.
That engagement has induced the creation of new criteria for the analysis and selection of investments, enhancing the dialogue about sustainability with other pension funds, and prompting PREVI to create new references for the activities of companies and ventures in which it invests as well as to establish new bases for the relationship between investors and managers of the different undertakings being funded.
The refinement of the projects already under way and the continuous implementation of the RSA Policy should reconfirm PREVI's identity as a manager responsible for the funds of its contributors, and watchful as to the society's actual and future demands. We will continue to promote the necessary conditions to foster the dialogue and the participation of all in pursuit of the construction of a fairer and more inclusive society. Possibly, in the near future, we will not need to speak any further about sustainability. Our actions, necessarily, must take all those aspects into consideration.