17 December 2021, "YiCai The Corporate Social Responsibility Ranking in China" held by YiCai selected exemplary companies in various industries that have fully implemented the values of responsibility and have excellent overall performance, relying on a professional, authoritative and original evaluation. GF Fund Management Co., Ltd. (GF Fund) was awarded the "ESG Shared Value Contribution Award" by YiCai for its role model and leadership in fulfilling social responsibility.
Two key words, "sustainability" and "leadership" were emphasized in The Corporate Social Responsibility Ranking in China 2021, which aims at discovering enterprises’ sustainable innovation and developing potential. It also aims at discovering a model of benevolent business, empowering industry leadership and business ecology. The inspection was last for nearly half a year to evaluate how the companies combine the characteristics of the industry creatively, give full play to their strengths, establish CSR systems and implement them into specific work processes, to achieve the goal of sustainable development eventually.
As one of the leaders in the public fund industry, GF Fund has integrated institutional development into the tide of the times, practiced inclusive finance, improved the ESG investment system, engaged in social welfare, combined internal and external efforts, and taken multiple measures to actively play the power of the fund in serving the real economy, building a new development pattern and promoting common prosperity.
As a model of inclusive finance, China's fund industry was born with the attribute of social responsibility, helping residents to preserve and increase their wealth. Since its establishment, GF Fund has never forgotten its original intention of being inclusive, adhering to its fundamental position of serving the public in financial management and the real economy, fulfilling its role as a trustee of fund properties, striving to promote professional capacity, building and strengthening the level of net value management. By the third quarter of 2021, the company had served more than 116 million customers, made a cumulative profit of RMB 224.2 billion for investors since its establishment, and the cumulative dividends reached RMB 117.9 billion. According to the data of Galaxy Securities Fund Research Center, the active management return of GF Fund reached 1695% for equity investment in the past 17 years, with an annualized return of 18.51%.
As a leading fund company with a sense of social responsibility and mission, GF Fund understands that Carbon Summit and Carbon Neutral have become a major strategic decisions made by China based on its responsibility to promote the building of a community of human destiny and the inherent requirement to achieve sustainable development. In the hard battle of achieving carbon peaks and carbon neutrality, the financial industry, which has the function of resource allocation, needs to play an important leading role in it.
In 2021, GF Fund has officially joined the United Nations-supported Principles For Responsible Investment (PRI) and committed to fulfilling the six principles of responsible investment, rewarding investors with value creation and contributing to society with responsibility. The company has incorporated the framework of responsible investment into its ESG investment strategy, actively practiced ESG investment by fulfilling the principles of responsible investment, continuously strengthened the construction of ESG investment system, actively carried out research in the field of green finance, and improved the research and development and layout of product lines.
Currently, GF has issued and operated several green index products, actively guiding financial resources to focus on Photovoltaics, energy storage and other environmental protection industry leaders; integrating ESG issues in the process of communication with listed companies and bond issuers, raising the attention of investee companies to ESG, optimizing the governance structure of investee companies and building a better ecosystem, promoting and optimizing the sustainable development environment of the industry; giving full play to the functions of value discovery and asset pricing, and promoting and optimizing the sustainable development environment of the industry. In addition, we will give full play to the function of value discovery and asset pricing, make every effort to promote investee companies to improve their development quality and strive to shoulder the historical mission of optimizing financing structure, stimulating economic vitality and fostering innovative power, to promote China's economic transformation and upgrading and sustainable development.
In addition to achieving its development and continuously improving its investment management expertise, GF has never forgotten to benefit the society, cultivate family sentiment, consciously shoulder the mission of the times and help realize the vision of common prosperity. The company actively carries out social welfare projects such as education, poverty relief, emergency relief and medical assistance, and has invested more than 54 million RMB in public welfare projects.
In the battle against poverty, GF has actively participated in the counterpart projects in many national key poverty alleviation areas such as Xinghe County in Inner Mongolia, Min County in Gansu, Tanchang County in Gansu and Fenxi County in Shanxi, improved education, culture and transportation conditions for Changting County in Fujian Province and other poor old revolutionary areas, helped the poverty alleviation and development and industrial construction in many less developed areas. The company participated in the "Guangdong Poverty Relief Day" for the 11th consecutive year and was awarded the "Advanced Unit for Donation to Poverty Relief".
After contributing to the battle against poverty, and in response to the national strategy of rural revitalization, GF Fund has set up the goal of "helping rural revitalization with education", making education public welfare as the focus of public welfare work, and striving to add color to the magnificent picture of rural revitalization. Based on the needs of education subjects at different stages of basic education, quality improvement and professional development, the company has established a multi-level and multi-dimensional education public welfare donation system, and initiated such education public welfare programs as "GF Fund's Education Public Welfare Program for Building Dreams with Wealth" and "GF Fund's Reading Promotion Support Program".
GF Fund said that in the future, it will always keep the original intention of universal benefit, fulfill its fiduciary responsibility on the ground, and help residents preserve and increase their wealth; at the same time, it will actively give back to the society, assume the responsibility of corporate social citizenship, exert the power of public welfare, and work together with the whole society to achieve people's aspiration for a better life and promote the vision of the times of common prosperity.