December 2023

Dutch pension fund PMT sells most fossil fuel holdings

Pensioenfonds Metaal & Techniek (PMT) has divested from 40 oil and gas companies, but remains invested in nine companies with “sufficiently convincing plans” for the energy transition and carbon reduction. All of the retained companies are headquartered in Europe. Over the past two years, the pension fund had asked all companies in the oil and gas sector in which it invests to commit to the Paris Agreement and set sufficiently ambitious and substantiated CO2 reduction targets. Forty of those companies could not meet...

November 2023

Climate change in an ageing world

The world is turning a blind eye to the need to address the profound link between the rapidly ageing population and climate change – leaving older people invisible in debates about how to address the crisis. With HelpAge’s new report on climate change, we look at what is happening around the world and share recommendations for a more inclusive response to climate change. Intersection between climate change and population ageing The ageing population is triggering one of the most significant social changes...

UK. ESG: Biodiversity And Nature Risks For Pension Schemes

While climate risk has increasingly been at the top of the agenda for trustees in recent years, biodiversity and nature risk has occasionally been overlooked, despite the serious financial implications stemming from these issues. The World Economic Forum's Global Risk Report 2023 cited "biodiversity loss and ecosystem collapse" as the fourth most significant global risk over the next ten years. In light of this, pension regulators are focusing their attention on biodiversity risk management.  A guide recently produced by...

British pensions could invest 1.2 trln pounds in climate projects, with policy help-report

 Britain's pensions industry could invest up to 1.2 trillion pounds ($1.5 trillion), half the capital needed by 2035 to put the UK on track to its net-zero goals, if there were more attractive projects and fewer regulatory barriers, a report on Tuesday showed. The UK pensions industry currently invests 4% of its assets in "climate solutions" and is on course to invest just 300 billion pounds by 2035, according to research from British life insurer Phoenix Group and campaign group...

October 2023

Fund managers are updating bond models to capture a new risk

A growing number of asset managers is reassessing bond values tied to real assets, as a spike in the frequency of flash floods, fires and storms hits conventional pricing models. Mitch Reznick, head of sustainable fixed income at Federated Hermes, says climate risk is a key reason why the investment manager is now underweight real estate credit. Jonathan Bailey, global head of ESG and impact investing at Neuberger Berman Group, says he's increasingly looking at whether issuers have enough capital to...

Australia pension fund plans up to $1.3 bln in clean energy investment

Australia's third-largest pension fund expects to invest up to A$2 billion ($1.3 billion) in a venture specialising in smaller-scale solar and battery installations as the country overhauls its electricity network to produce clean energy. Aware Super, which manages A$160 billion, announced on Wednesday a A$300 million partnership with Birdwood Energy to finance distributed renewable energy projects, and expects its investment to grow to up to A$2 billion as more projects become ready for financing. The partnership's planned investments in smaller-scale projects,...

U.K. investors turn up the heat on boards for climate transition plans

Investors with a collective £1.8 trillion ($2.2 trillion) in assets told high-emitting FTSE 350 companies that they expect to see climate transition plans on the agenda at their next annual meetings. The 18 investors include the Local Authority Pension Fund Forum, CCLA Investment Management, Sarasin & Partners and Ethos Foundation. In letters to corporate chairmen at 35 companies, the investors said that for the past two years they asked the corporate boards to provide shareholders with the opportunity to vote on...

Danish pension fund completes US$520m divestment

Danish pension fund AkademikerPension has completed a fossil fuel divestment program to exit its portfolio of oil and gas stocks worth US$520 million with the sale of Italy's ENI. The fund, which oversees $20 billion in client assets, has undergone a divestment program spanning half a decade. It has now divested from BP, Chevron, Equinor, Exxon Mobil, Petrobras, PetroChina, Shell, Repsol and TotalEnergies. AkademikerPension, formerly named MP Pension, is a pension fund that admits academic degree holders, with more than 150,000 members privately or...

September 2023

TPR issues first climate-related reporting penalty to ExxonMobil’s U.K. plan

The U.K.'s Pensions Regulator issued its first fine against a pension fund for failing to publish a report on how its trustees manage and govern climate-related risks and opportunities, delivering a £5,000 ($6,118) penalty to the ExxonMobil Pension Plan, Leatherhead, England. U.K. pension funds with more than £5 billion in assets have been required to publish a climate change report by a set deadline since October 2021. The report must be made publicly available on a website so participants can...

Canadian pension funds ignore rapid rise in climate dangers

Canadian pension funds with hundreds of billions in assets are ignoring the threat to their members’ retirement security as the global climate tips into a new and more destructive phase. “There are some pretty ominous concerns that we’re approaching tipping points,” says Patrick DeRochie, senior manager with Shift Action for Pension Wealth and Planet Health, an educational and advocacy organization on Canadian pensions and climate. “Pension funds need to understand that their mandate is impossible to fulfill without a stable climate....