Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG)

AQR is committed to helping our clients achieve their ESG goals. We seek to integrate ESG in both our asset selection and ownership decisions, guided by the responsible investment framework we created with the UN Principles for Responsible Investment (PRI) in 2019.

Responsible Asset Selection

Across the firm: AQR has used ESG-related signals in our investment models since inception in 1998; we believe that incorporating such signals provides a more holistic view of a given company.

Dedicated ESG solutions: As of December 31, 2025, we manage $26.5 billion in dedicated ESG strategies. Portfolios managed according to our Sustainable process target significant carbon reductions in long-only and relaxed constraint accounts and net zero carbon exposure in long-short portfolios, avoid companies with the largest ESG risk exposures by imposing static and dynamic exclusions, and target an improvement in portfolio ESG profile. This process is offered in standalone long-only, total return and absolute return equity portfolios, as well as in the equity sleeves of multi-strategy total return and absolute return portfolios. We also manage customized portfolios for our clients to address specific ESG- or carbon-related priorities, and we feel our flexibility and capabilities in this space are distinguishing.

Responsible Ownership

Transparency is a primary focus of AQR’s stewardship activities, and our engagement is undertaken at the firm level. We engage directly with portfolio companies that meet certain pre-defined criteria, with the exclusive goal of improving transparency. Engagements may be conducted directly by AQR with portfolio companies for data that may be salient to AQR’s investment process. We also partner with peers and clients on issues that we feel are best addressed through collaborative engagement and pursue research into other areas where active ownership may exert positive influence on corporate transparency and disclosure of ESG issues.

We seek to align proxy voting with long-term value creation, including on ESG issues. As described in our public proxy voting policy, our standard approach to voting in applicable commingled funds is to apply a Sustainable policy. We can customize proxy voting in separate accounts to meet client needs.