South West Action on Pensions (SWAP) are calling on Brunel Pension Partnership and the 10 authorities they work for, including Dorset Council, to stop using their pension funds to invest in fossil fuels and start using the money to invest in climate-friendly pensions.
SWAP want to see 100% divestment in fossil fuel companies, equities, bonds and associated financial products by 2025, divestment from all carbon-intensive industries with investment being switched to carbon-neutral companies and projects that create a sustainable future with sustainable jobs.
Brunel is one of eight UK Local Government Pension Scheme (LGPS) pools bringing together more than £35 billion of investments for the nine local authorities they work for, including Dorset Council also covering Bournemouth Christchurch and Poole, and the Environment Agency.
For the last year SWAP has been writing to Brunel expressing their concerns that the scope and rate of change represented by their climate policy is not properly aligned with the Paris Agreement to keep global warming to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels.
Brunel has now agreed to meet with representatives from SWAP on 14 December at their offices in Bristol. SWAP has supporters from each of the nine local authorities who use Brunel and the Environmental Agency. They also have support from the trade unions Unison and Unite who represent many thousands of members working for the local authorities.
Caz Dennett from SWAP in Dorset said, “We welcome this opportunity to engage with Brunel. One of the things we want to talk to them about is why their Climate Policy continues to give an unclear target of ‘well below 2°C’, when they should be firmly stating 1.5°C. 75% of UK councils have declared a Climate and Ecological Emergency. Yet most still continue to allow their pension funds to be used by companies who are continuing to explore and extract fossil fuels. Including those local authorities who use Brunel, and they are doing this in the light of advice and with support from Brunel. Moving away from fossil fuels and investing in carbon-neutral green industries is the most important thing we should be doing”.
A local government pension member in Dorset, Julie-Ann Booker, also commented that “I’m very worried that Brunel is taking unnecessary financial risks by continuing to invest in fossil fuels, risks which will be borne by electors as well as by pensioners and their families across our region. Moody’s Investors Service (a major investment company) have just published a report (3) saying that ‘the clock is ticking for banks, insurers and asset managers still providing support to oil, gas and coal producers. It’s not just the moral imperative, that fossil fuel use is destroying the atmosphere and life on Earth with it, it’s that their financial health requires leaving such companies behind’. Their message is that unless investors make a swift change to climate-friendly financing they will soon start to make big losses”.
Whilst guided by Brunel’s advice, each of the local authority members in the Brunel Pool also have their own financial policies and there is a range of approaches to pension investment. The Chief Executive of the Environment Agency, Sir James Bevan, sounded a warning last week in an address he delivered to the Association of Foreign Banks (4). Noting that the message to come out of the COP26 Climate Summit was that ‘there is no future in carbon’ and that businesses and investors had to ‘adapt or die’. He said that investors that continued to invest in fossil fuels were exposing themselves to major financial risks.
SWAP supporters will be interested to hear Brunel’s response to Sir Bevan’s statement as one of their key stakeholder partners. They will also be interested to hear how his message is received by the nine other local authority partners in the Brunel Pool.
