Engaging communities and sustainable investing
We have an active, employee-run community engagement program. Supporting communities is a cornerstone of our culture and an extension of how our investment teams invest.
Our community activities are an extension of how we invest.
Kelvin Teo
Portfolio manager
Emerging markets and Asia Pacific Equities
APAC leader for Community Engagement
UBS Asset Management
For close to 10 years now, we’ve talked to companies about their environment, social and governance (ESG) policies. We find that good companies – those that are savvy at planning ahead, also tend to be more conscious of these factors. They understand that having the right ESG policies is part of a good business strategy – over time, they can help with staff camaraderie and can prevent make a positive financial impact.
At UBS Asset Management, ESG is more than just a buzzword. It’s in our investment process and also a corporate culture involving the business and investment teams.
12 July 2019
Several of us tuned out of balance sheets and conference calls one Friday morning and headed down to a soup kitchen run by Willing Hearts at the Kembangan Chai Chee Community Hub.
Most of us were assigned to the preparation area where we joined volunteers from all walks of life to clear stacks of vegetable waste, chopped up crates of leafy greens and onions.
The soup kitchen at Willing Hearts is wholly run by volunteers. The kitchen prepares about 5,000 meals daily and distributes to over 40 locations across Singapore, 365 days a year. Its beneficiaries include the elderly, the disabled, low income families, children from single parent families, or poverty stricken families and migrant workers.
UBS Asset Management will be organising another trip down to Willing Hearts again in September.
Teams from investment, legal, compliance, products, marketing, operations chopping up greens
25 May 2019
Saturday mornings are prime for lazing in and brunches with family and friends.
Nonetheless, a group of us with kids and the significant others in tow, met at the East Coast Beach area D in Singapore to pick up debris and litter on our shore lines on Saturday morning.
From 8am to 10 am, we picked, sorted and bagged through the litter we gathered.
And the tally:
- 50kg rubbish
- 20kg recyclables
- 70kg total litter gathered
We ended the session by organising the recyclables into the various bins and disposing the rubbish collected.
Our 'haul' from the beach
Mid 2016 - 2018
UBS Asset Management was a corporate partner to the Halogen Foundation for over 2.5 years.
Halogen Foundation is a values-based not-for-profit institution of a Public Character charity. It believes every young person has innate potential to influence and lead, becoming positive change agents.
We sponsored their Network for Teaching Entrepreneurship (NFTE) programme and through that adopted a secondary school in the Clementi neighbourhood. Each NFTE programme comprises a 60-hour session aimed at cultivating an entrepreneurial mindset and building business skills in youth from less privileged communities.
In the 2.5 years, we worked with three different secondary 3 classes of about 120 students in all where we taught them skills needed to cultivate entrepreneurship:
- presentation techniques
- making a business case
- product marketing
- profit and loss analysis
To give the students a taste of life in offices, we invited one group over to our premise at One Raffles Quay. We introduced them to various business functions during the office tour and brought them to see our investment team trading real time.
At the end of each progamme, the students have to present their business cases to our senior management. The top 3 presenters went on to compete at the national level.
UBS-AM volunteers
Explaining how trades are done to students
Supporting communities at UBS
UBS is also actively involved with supporting communities globally.
In line with our global policy, Community Affairs programs in Asia Pacific seek to overcome social challenges by investing in our two focus area of "education" and "entrepreneurship", providing targeted financial support and employee volunteering to generate positive impact in our local communities.
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