The award was issued to KWAP by AsianInvestor at its fifth Awards Gala Dinner held in Singapore.

The Institutional Excellence Awards is an annual event by AsianInvestor, a leading publication in Southeast Asia that focuses on the region’s asset management industry.

The awards programme is designed to recognize excellence and best practices among institutional investors across Asia Pacific in various categories including investment capabilities, innovation, as well as environmental, social and governance (ESG).

KWAP emerged as the winner of the ESG category owing to its longstanding commitment to include ESG considerations across multiple asset classes. The fund was also recognised for its numerous efforts to help promote the conversation and catalyse the adoption of ESG internally, to its own stakeholders as well as to the investment community at large.

Accepting the award, Ismail Zakaria, the Director of Corporate Strategy and Performance of KWAP said, “We are honoured by this acknowledgement of the hard work and effort placed into a cause that we strongly believe in.

“KWAP extends our sincerest gratitude to AsianInvestor for this recognition. Moving forward, this award will motivate us to further improve our efforts towards consistency in upholding and promoting ESG practices in the future.”

According to AsianInvestor’s senior consultants and ESG investment professionals, KWAP’s initiatives stood out the most amongst the other contenders. Earlier this year, KWAP made headlines by becoming the first pension fund in Malaysia to be a signatory of the United Nations-supported Principles for Responsible Investment (UNPRI).

With the signing, KWAP formally joined the PRI’s global network of policymakers that is working to build a sustainable financial system on the foundation of responsible investment.

Furthermore, KWAP also hosted its inaugural KWAP Inspire: Environmental Conference in July 2018. The first-of-its kind regional conference in Malaysia was hosted in collaboration with the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) and saw over 400 delegates from almost 200 organisations including regulatory and government bodies, financial institutions, and corporates coming together to share their experiences, build knowledge, and engage in deeper conversations about the environment.

Beyond advancing the ESG agenda on the international and regional stage, KWAP has also made its mark internally by developing Corporate Level ESG Guidelines to guide KWAP’s internal and external stakeholders in ensuring sustainable long-term returns.

The guidelines highlight seven key pillars, namely environment, human capital, governance, investment management, members administration, ethical practices and social. These are parts of KWAP’s plan to integrate ESG practices in all its investments in the future.

As a recipient of the Institutional Excellence Award, KWAP has proven itself to be a notable player in the regional asset management industry alongside other winners, namely Commonwealth Superannuation Corporation (Australia) under the Governance category, Future Fund (Australia) for investment capabilities and Government Pension Investment Fund (Japan) for innovation.