Wednesday 29 July 2020

UK’s biggest pension fund to shift £5.5bn in ‘climate aware’ investments

The UK's biggest pension fund, the National Employment Saving Trust (Nest) plans to invest £5.5 billion in climate aware strategies.

This represents 45% of Nest’s entire portfolio and is estimated to reduce the fund's carbon footprint by the equivalent of taking 200,000 cars off the road.

Nest has also pledged to begin divesting from companies involved in thermal coal, oil sands and arctic drilling and be completely divested by 2025 at the latest unless they have a clear plan to phase out all related activity by 2030.

It notes all companies with more than 20% of revenues from these activities will be excluded from its investment portfolio by the end of 2020.

In addition, the fund plans to inject a greater proportion of its funds in green infrastructure, building on the £100 million Nest has already invested in renewable projects across Europe.

Mark Fawcett, Nest’s Chief Investment Officer, said: “Just like coronavirus, climate change poses serious risks to both our savers and their investments. It has the potential to cause catastrophic damage and completely disrupt our way of life. No-one wants to save throughout their life to retire into a world devastated by climate change.

“As the world’s economy slowly recovers from coronavirus, we want to ensure this recovery is a green one. We have a unique opportunity to support sustainable growth and transition towards a low-carbon economy."

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