October 2021
13Oct

Canada. Ontario Teachers’ Announces Agreement to Acquire Majority Stake in Vantage Elevator Solutions

Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan Board ("Ontario Teachers'"), today announced an agreement to acquire a majority stake in Vantage Elevator Solutions ("Vantage"), a leading North American designer, manufacturer and distributor of elevator components and systems. As part of the transaction, Vantage's current owner, Golden Gate Capital, will retain a significant minority ownership stake in the company. Terms of the transaction are not being disclosed. Vantage is a leading North American elevator component manufacturer, providing a broad portfolio of parts and components...

October 13, 2021
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12Oct

WTW and Qontigo launch climate transition indices

Willis Towers Watson (WTW) and Qontigo have announced the launch of the STOXX WTW Climate Transition Indices (CTI), which utilise a new methodology to quantify the impact of a Paris-aligned climate transition on equity valuations. The CTI are expected to help investors, governments and companies to manage the risk and opportunities in their portfolios, looking "beyond carbon emissions” with a forward-looking, bottom-up evaluation of transition risk and opportunity for each company. The proprietary Climate Transition Value at Risk (CTVaR) measure analyses...

October 12, 2021
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September 2021
30Sep

Pension fund and other investors with $4 trln assets aim to tackle Asian firms on climate change goals

A group of six investors with a combined $4 trillion of assets under management, including Fidelity International, said on Wednesday it aims to step up engagement with big Asian companies like banks and energy producers to ensure they have a road map to meet climate change targets. Initial engagement will focus on carbon risk and coal at banks and coal-exposed power companies, the group of investors, facilitated by Singapore-based advisor Asia Research & Engagement (ARE), said in a statement. The move...

September 30, 2021
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29Sep

Canada’s second-largest pension fund says first to exit oil assets

Canada’s No. 2 pension fund, Caisse de depot et placement du Quebec, said Tuesday it will shed all of its oil production assets, valued at C$3.9 billion ($3.08 billion), by the end of 2022 and reduce carbon intensity by 60% by 2030. It said it would be the first institutional investor in Canada to exit oil production assets. As part of a plan to reach net-zero emissions by 2050, Montreal-based Caisse plans to hold green assets worth C$54 billion by 2025...

September 29, 2021
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27Sep

UK. The trillions in our pension pots could be key to tackling the climate crisis

By Richard Curtis Someone said something really striking to me the other day – that weather used to be the last thing on the news, but now it’s the first. And it’s not good news. Fire, floods, drought – climate change in terrible and obvious action. It made me think of something I’ve been increasingly obsessed by – unexpectedly – which is pensions. Pensions used to be the last thing on our minds, certainly not something to talk about at...

September 27, 2021
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10Sep

Danish pension sector adopts common climate reporting rules

Denmark’s pensions and insurance lobby announced today it has adopted a set of common climate reporting rules for the sector, as part of the ongoing work in the Nordic country to meet its 2030 emissions reduction goal. The new code – based on the comply-or-explain principle – covers CO2 emissions from investment assets, damage prevention, active ownership and the use of paper in everyday life, according to the announcement from Insurance & Pension Denmark (IPD). It has been devised as part...

September 10, 2021
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August 2021

Students demand that teacher pension fund revoke fossil-fuel investments
30Aug

US. Students demand that teacher pension fund revoke fossil-fuel investments

More than 500 Bay Area high school students gathered outside the San Francisco Federal Building on 7th Street Friday before marching down Market Street to City Hall, calling on the California State Teachers’ Retirement System, the state’s pension fund for California public school teachers, to divest its investment holdings in fossil fuel companies. They pointed out that that California’s wildfires demonstrate the need to reduce emissions. “This climate strike has been going on for years, but we’re feeling the effects of climate...

August 30, 2021
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19Aug

US. Climate Change and Benchmarking Risk for Retirement Plans

Institutional Investors Generally  don´t mine coal, make cement or indiscriminately strip large forests. But the companies in which they invest might be engaged in such activities that experts say will prove incompatible with the shift to a lower-carbon world. And, they add, a retirement plan’s holdings of these at-risk investments could have negative consequences for plan participants.   Plan Exposures Climate change risks can affect plans in several ways, says Therese Feng, vice president of research for The Climate Service, a climate...

August 19, 2021
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17Aug

US. Should the Federal Government ‘Green’ Its Pension Plan?

Climate change is posing an existential threat to more than just the planet. In fact, the federal government is concerned that weather-related risks will begin eroding the retirement portfolios of its employees. Read also US. Climate Change and Benchmarking Risk for Retirement Plans Earlier this year, the U.S. Government Accountability Office recommended that the board overseeing the Thrift Savings Plan (TSP) for federal workers analyze the financial performance of companies in its portfolio, in light of risks related to climate change...

August 17, 2021
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12Aug

Climate Change 2021 The Physical Science Basis

By IPCC This Summary for Policymakers (SPM) presents key findings of the Working Group I (WGI) contribution to the IPCC’s Sixth Assessment Report (AR6)1 on the physical science basis of climate change. The report builds upon the 2013 Working Group I contribution to the IPCC’s Fifth Assessment Report (AR5) and the 2018–2019 IPCC Special Reports2 of the AR6 cycle and incorporates subsequent new evidence from climate science3 . This SPM provides a high-level summary of the understanding of the current state of...

August 12, 2021
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