The pipers are piping for your pension fund!
We’ve just won 2 awards - Best Pension Fund in the UK and Best Approach to Sustainable Investing. Not only that but it was also highly commended as one of the Best Public Pension Funds in Europe. Our entries focussed on the leading responsible investment work the Fund does. For 2 years running the Fund has also been recognised as a global leader by the UN’s Principles for Responsible Investment.
We also put a great emphasis on you, our members and the invaluable help we received from many of you in 2020. The judges’ commented “This fund should be applauded, with strong performance figures backed by a proactive, efficient and innovative response to the pandemic, whilst keeping focus on ESG and the views of its members”.
In February, we asked for your views on investment and over 2,600 of you responded. 88% of you think it is important to invest in sustainable and low carbon assets. In July we ran a Responsible Investment Forum over a 2 week period. 200 of you joined. It was an interactive series of events including polls, Zoom focus groups, 1:1s and online discussions.
During the 2 weeks, Pension Committee members introduced topics on our responsible investment approach. The Australian Super Pension Fund talked about work we’ve done with them on managing physical risks to investments from climate change. We even had a video from Richard Curtis, the Director of such films as Four Weddings and a Funeral. Richard had just launched the ‘Make My Money Matter’ initiative to make people aware of the need for their pensions to reflect their values and invest appropriately, which we fully support. You can watch the video here.
Climate Change remains a key area of focus for us. Recent events have brought human rights to the fore and we’ve always been conscious that our Fund should ‘do no harm’ and lead to ‘a world worth living in’. We know that you want us to do more in all these areas and we are constantly reviewing how we do things and looking for new and innovative approaches. We don’t do this alone but by engaging with our investment managers, the Brunel pool, numerous organisations, and collaborative groups. We also engage directly with the companies we invest in through engagement specialists or attending their annual general meetings to ask questions of the Board.
All major decisions go through a clearly defined governance process which includes the Investment Sub Committee (ISC). Those on the Committee include your member reps who would welcome feedback from you. If you don’t know who they are please see the following section. The Investment Sub Committee has a ‘Fiduciary Duty’ to act in the best interest of members, so any feedback about the Fund has to be considered with this in mind. We have a strong funding position and good investment performance and the ISC work to ensure this is maintained.
There will be more information on the EAPF website soon about how we’re taking on board your feedback but one example is that right now we’re working on a really ambitious net zero target. 92% of members taking part in the Responsible Investment Forum this summer wanted this. We’ll be taking something for approval by the Pension Committee that is ambitious, based on science and measurable. Another bit of member feedback we got in summer was the desire to see more clearly on the website the companies we invest in. We’re working on that now too.
Please keep your feedback coming to us through this email address and/or through your member reps. Please do also join the member engagement in 2021 and beyond. We’re thinking up ideas already!