“As our name Active Super suggests, we actively pursue investments that deliver strong long-term returns,” Chantal Walker, Chief Digital & Marketing Officer

Chantal Walker, Chief Digital & Marketing Officer, Active Super talks to Indus Age about responsible investment, how the company has been ranked as a top-performing super fund for the last seven years and more. Read on…

By Staff reporter

1. Can you tell me more about Active Super and what they do?

Active Super is a profit-to-member super fund that manages more than $14 billion in assets for about 80,000 members. We used to be known as Local Government Super as we are the default fund for local government employees in NSW, but we underwent a significant rebranding exercise in May 2021 to broaden our appeal beyond our traditional membership base.

We are an active investor that delivers above average returns for our members and we are a leader in responsible investment. By that, I mean we only invest in companies that have a positive social impact. We do not engage with organisations that have treated their workers unfairly, nor do we invest funds in companies that specialise in products that harm the well-being of others. Our investment philosophy is 100% based on ESG principles –environmental, social and corporate governance.

The companies we invest in are assessed for their ability to deliver strong financial performance, as well as their ESG impact on the world. As we are driven by an ESG philosophy, we can assure our members that their money is contributing to the betterment of the world.

• How did Active Super become the company it is today?

Let’s talk firstly about our responsible investment ethos which is at the core of everything we do. Over 20 years ago, we were the first super fund in Australia to stop investing in tobacco.

In 2009, we were one of the first investors to focus on climate change risk. Today, we’re recognised as one of Australia’s leading super funds for responsible investment.

In 2020/21, we delivered some of our best annual returns on record, showing that responsibly invested super can deliver strong financial returns while still looking out for the greater good of your super balance as well as the world around us.

• What differentiates your super fund from other super funds out there?

Whilst we may not be the biggest super fund around, we believe that we can use our medium size to our advantage to be more agile on how we approach things to ensure our members get the best member experience. This is demonstrated by our local service as we have a regional presence across NSW with customer relationship managers and financial planers in the field. Our contact centre is also based in Sydney and member calls are typically answered within 20 seconds.  By being a smaller fund we can also ensure that we truly understand all our members needs and tailor our products and service accordingly.

• Why is responsible investment important and how does it work?

We have been investing responsibly for over a decade and first became a signatory to the UN Principles for Responsible Investment in 2007.

As our name Active Super suggests, we actively pursue investments that deliver strong long-term returns for members and that also have a positive impact on the world. We not only assess investments for their ability to deliver a strong financial performance, but also for their ESG impact on the world.

The key areas of focus for Active Super include climate change, diversity, good governance and social considerations. These driving factors are in our DNA and highlight the different ways we assess risk, measure success and continue to prove our commitment to investing for the greater good.

• Active Super has been ranked as a top-performing super fund over the last seven years by the ATO. What do you think are the main factors behind Active Super continuously delivering such fantastic outcomes for Australians?

This all comes down to our Chief Investment Officer Craig Turnbull and his investment team. Global equity markets had a stellar year and rebounded very strongly since the initial market sell-off when Covid-19 first hit in early 2020.

Global and domestic share markets have led the way, but we also had good returns from private equity, private credit, direct property and infrastructure.

As a leader in responsible investment, it is encouraging to see great returns are not sacrificed when investing for the good of society. To be clear, in the last financial year, Active Super delivered record returns for High Growth members of over 23 percent.

The fund also passed APRA’s inaugural performance test while being ranked among the best-performing funds over seven years by the new ATO Comparison Tool, with returns of 9.46 percent. (Assumes a 30-year-old with a $50,000 balance.) It should be noted that past performance is not a reliable indicator of future performance.

• Australia is a very multicultural country. Unfortunately, Active Super is not a very well-known brands with many of the multicultural audiences. As the Chief Digital and Marketing Officer of Active Super, how are you helping to grow Active Super and raise awareness about your services among these audiences?

One of the key things we are doing is partnering with MultiConnexions Group, a multicultural marketing and advertising agency. This will help broaden our appeal and increase engagement with Australians from different backgrounds.

There is a tremendous opportunity to reach Australians who otherwise would not be engaged with their superannuation.  I come from a strong background in consumer marketing and understand that a one-size-fits-all marketing and communications strategy is not the best way to communicate with the Australian population given its strong multicultural composition.

Research shows that 25 percent of the Australian population speaks a language other than English, and 50 percent of the population is born overseas and has at least one parent born overseas. Regrettably, many marketers ignore these segments, but through our partnership with MultiConnexions, Active Super is taking action to address this gap in the market.

We are also driving greater engagement with our members by communicating with them regularly. They receive monthly newsletters with information about industry reforms and how it may impact their super, we host regular webinars with our specialists on topics that are relevant to members and we have a Sydney-based customer services centre that can answer their specific queries.

• It is great to see a company that is not only a leader in responsible investment but is also delivering strong financial performance through their positive impact on the world. How is Active Super currently meeting its environmental and social responsibilities?

We are recognised by numerous organisations for our approach to responsible investment.

Active Super is one of only four Australian super funds with all products certified responsible by the Responsible Investment Association Australasia (RIAA) and we have won the SuperRatings Infinity Award for leading the industry in responsible investment a record seven times. 

Plus, we are a certified responsible super fund with investments across Australian and international shares, property, infrastructure, private equity, fixed interest and absolute return asset classes.

We just issued our first-ever Impact Report which outlines how the actions, decisions and policies behind our investment choices are helping to make a difference. This report will be produced every year to give members a greater understanding of the key areas of focus for the fund, including climate change, diversity, good governance and social considerations. It also highlights the different ways we assess risk, measure success and continue to prove our commitment to investing for the greater good. 

Active Super has an award-winning direct property portfolio that is actively managed by our in-house specialist property team with eight high-quality assets throughout NSW, including four office buildings, three retail centres and one multi-unit industrial estate. 

Active Super Property received a ‘6 Star Green Star – Performance’ rating from the Green Building Council of Australia and was certified carbon neutral by Climate Active for the third consecutive year. We were the first NABERS-rated property portfolio to achieve carbon neutral certification in accordance with the Climate Active Carbon Neutral Standard for Buildings in 2019.  

We also secured a No.1 ranking in the NABERS Sustainable Portfolios Index 2021 with the best performing shopping centre portfolio in NABERS’ Energy and Water category and were the only retail portfolio to be certified carbon neutral.

• What plans do Active Super have to grow their services, offerings, or business in the future?

Apart from our partnership with MultiConnexions, we are continually striking agreements with various companies. Most recently, we’ve launched our rewards program that aims to give back to our members at no cost to them, thereby adding further value to their super. Recently we teamed up with the car-sharing platform, GoGet, to give members a year’s free membership. We have deals with Koala and Bed Threads – both great Aussie companies offering exclusive discounts to our members, and we had already partnered with private health insurer, HCF, to give our members a great not-for-profit corporate rate for health insurance.

Our decision to rebrand as Active Super was part of a broader ambition to transform Local Government Super into a modern, mobile-first digital enterprise. We are driving member engagement by investing in our digital assets and ramping up our social media presence as part of a digital transformation over the next three years.

 As a digital-focussed super fund we have invested heavily to give our members a new digital experience. As part of our rebrand, we redesigned our website, upgraded our app with increased functionality and improved the overall engagement experience. We also increased the security measures to protect personal data from unauthorised access, including multi-factor authentication (MFA) to access the portal and app. 

And in a further benefit to members, from July 1 we removed our switching fee and cut administration fees for the second consecutive year as we continue to look for efficiencies and ways to reduce our operating costs.