April 2024
10Apr

Caisse races toward sustainability targets but says company data to measure emissions from investments is still lacking

The Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec is reaching its targets to cut carbon emissions from its $434-billion investment portfolio years ahead of schedule, but much of the hardest work is still to come. The Montreal-based pension fund manager said in an annual sustainability report released Wednesday that it has cut the intensity of carbon emissions from its investment portfolio by 59 per cent since 2017. That puts it just shy of a 60-per-cent reduction it aims to achieve...

April 10, 2024
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09Apr

Financial sector faces challenges amid climate crisis

Many of us have life insurance or retirement funds: we may allocate a portion of our salary to them each month. But we rarely know how our money is being invested. We simply trust that, when the time comes, the resources will be available to us and that the financial system will have invested our savings wisely. Still, we don’t necessarily know precisely where our money is being invested, nor do we know what regulatory framework financial institutions are operating under. At...

April 9, 2024
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05Apr

The Effects of Environmental Distress on Labor Markets: Evidence from Brazil

By Danae Hernandez-Cortes & Sophie Mathes This article documents how environmental distress affects individual-level labor market outcomes in Latin America’s largest economy. We collect data on a broad range of environmental distress events namely heat waves, floods, fires, and droughts, and combine these with uniquely rich administrative information covering the universe of formal employment in Brazil from 2003 to 2017. We find heterogeneous labor effects in response to environmental distress. We find that heat waves disrupt employment, increasing retirement rates...

April 5, 2024
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04Apr

US. NYC Pensions Reach Deal With RBC to Publish Green-Funding Ratio

New York City retirement plans reached an agreement with Royal Bank of Canada for the lender to disclose how much financing it provides for clean-energy projects relative to fossil fuels. Canada’s largest bank is the third financial giant to agree to begin disclosing the ratio after New York Comptroller Brad Lander and the city’s public-pension boards filed shareholder resolutions with six banks in January. The proposal was set to be voted upon at Toronto-based Royal Bank’s annual meeting next week. “We’re...

April 4, 2024
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04Apr

UK. The Pensions Regulator unveils fresh 2030 climate targets

UK regulator plans to focus on cutting gas, electricity, business travel, water and waste emissions in short term on course to achieving net zero across its operations and supply chain by 2050 The Pensions Regulator (TPR) has unveiled a suite of fresh climate targets, including a goal to slash its operational greenhouse gas emissions by 90 per cent by the end of the decade compared to 2017/18 levels. The UK regulator, which set out its first climate change strategy three years...

April 4, 2024
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March 2024
27Mar

UK. Data shows public concern about pensions adequacy and climate change

Most of the public want the government to do more to address pensions adequacy and to ensure the industry is tackling the climate crisis, research from ShareAction, Make My Money Matter and Finance Innovation Lab finds. The research from the responsible investment organisations – which polled 2,000 UK adults this month – found three quarters (77%) of the public were concerned about adequacy, while two thirds (65%) wanted the pensions industry to address climate change. As part of its work, the group put...

March 27, 2024
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22Mar

Pension funds and fossil fuel phase-out: historical developments and limitations of pension climate strategies

 By Clara McDonnell Despite the decades of international climate negotiations and several landmark agreements, global efforts to date to restrict fossil fuel production in line with climate targets have been unsuccessful. As national and international policies continue to fall short of phasing out fossil fuels, increasing attention has been paid to non-state actors, like pension funds, as a potential source of more ambitious climate action. As major asset owners, large shareholders in fossil fuel companies, and historically activist investors, pension...

March 22, 2024
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13Mar

Building Europe’s Green Transition and Retirement Security – Listed Real Estate’s Dual Role in Global Megatrends

As we enter 2024, the world continues to confront financial and environmental challenges on a global and societal scale. Globally, efforts to meet the Paris Agreement’s objectives are falling behind, with the green transition’s investment levels not meeting the necessary targets. This was highlighted by the World Bank’s Senior Managing Director, at the recent EU Sustainable Investment Summit, where the critical need for accelerated private investment in sustainability was underscored. The Commission identified a 1.5 trillion euro annual funding need...

March 13, 2024
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13Mar

Ageing and the climate crisis

It’s no secret that the population is getting older. According to the World Health Organisation, between 2020 and 2050 the global number of people aged 60 and over will rise from 1 billion to 2.1 billion. Many wealthier countries already have disproportionately weighty older populations: where I live in Wales, over-60s are predicted to make up around 30% of the population by 2026. Now the rest of the world is catching up: by 2050, two thirds of over-60s worldwide will live in what...

March 13, 2024
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12Mar

US. Comptroller DiNapoli Declares Exxon Not Transition-Ready: Who’s Next?

The New York State Common Retirement Fund recently announced it will restrict investment in eight energy companies, including ExxonMobilXOM -0.5%, following a review of the companies' "transition readiness" to a low-carbon economy. Overseeing the $250 billion New York State Common Retirement Fund for public employees, State Comptroller Thomas P. DiNapoli defended the move, reiterating his broader ambitions to keep climate change "at the forefront" of the state pension fund's investment risk mitigation efforts. DiNapoli wants us to think he's doing so solely to protect pension fund members, not...

March 12, 2024
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