ABP Investments, the asset management arm of the €150bn ($129bn) Dutch public employees pension fund, has appointed Innovest Strategic Value Advisors, the socially responsible research house, to run an ethical investment portfolio.

The project is ABP's first foray into ethical investing. It is putting €100m into European equities and $100m (€116.3m) into US equities where strict ethical criteria is applied, said René Maatman, chief counsel at the fund. The appointment is a significant win for Innovest which was first launched in the US in 1995 when it first but has already built up an impressive client list across the US, Canada and Europe.