Mymoney net4/7/2023 ![]() The letter coincides with increasing support from major UK businesses and growing public demand for green pensions. Make My Money Matter hopes that remaining defined benefit schemes will follow the example of their peers, such as the GBP58 billion BT defined benefit pension scheme and commit to net zero ahead of COP26 in Glasgow this year. ![]() Pensions are one of the most effective ways to get change.Many large DB schemes have yet to commit to robust net zero targets, including halving emissions this decade. “Younger people are thinking about their purchases, about the impact of what they do and what they buy, their clothes and their food. “It took a lot from my dad to convince me that I should get a pension at all,” he said, but added that younger people were more aware of their future as the evident dangers of climate breakdown had become more obvious, and pensions should be part of this. “Weather used to be the last thing on the news – now it’s the first thing on the news.”Ĭurtis said it was vital to talk to young people now about pensions and the impacts they could have on the future of the planet, rather than focus on people nearer to pension age. “I’ve been very inspired by the younger generation’s focus on the climate,” he said. He said his son had been marching with Fridays for Future, the global movement of young people inspired by Greta Thunberg’s school climate strikes. ![]() It’s 21 times more effective than changing your energy provider.” “Changing my pension is the biggest change I have made for the climate. There are very exciting companies to invest in,” said Curtis, whose films include Love Actually and Four Weddings and a Funeral. “There is a very positive range of options for investors. Aligning investments with net zero would be possible for those schemes, Curtis said, pointing to the £1tn of UK pension fund investments that have already shifted to portfolios compatible with a net zero target. This includes about 70% of the UK’s largest pension schemes, many of which are older-style final salary schemes. Make My Money Matter estimates that £1.7tn worth of investments in UK pension funds are not yet in line with the goal of holding global temperature rises to 1.5C, the limit targeted by the government at Cop26, and which the net zero target is needed to meet. While the UK has had a legally binding target since 2019 to reach net zero by 2050, most pension funds have not shifted their portfolios to reflect this, although many of the people investing in pensions today will be drawing them by 2050. If the government made net zero targets mandatory on the pension industry, the default position for advisers would switch to advocating investments with a low carbon footprint, which would have a transformative effect on the UK’s investment landscape, said Burdon. We think just the opposite – that if they do not move to net zero, they could see legal challenges.” They think they might see a legal challenge. At the moment, some trustees are fearful. Tony Burdon, the chief executive of Make My Money Matter, said: “The government needs to ensure that net zero is mandatory to help trustees. Ministers have been reluctant to make mandatory changes that would affect how companies invest, though at last year’s Cop26 climate summit the chancellor, Rishi Sunak, said large companies would have to disclose their exposure to the risks of the climate crisis by 2025.īut many campaigners think the mandatory disclosure of climate risk alone does not go far enough, as it does not penalise companies for investing in high-carbon activities.
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