On the back of National Pension Awareness Week, we thought what better a time than now to make you aware of the great things your Fund has been up to.
We’ve been busy working hard to see if we can improve our offering to you. We are, after all, living up to the title we were given recently, of the ‘Best Pension Fund in the UK’ by the Investments and Pensions Europe (IPE).
When we asked you, our members what you think about Responsible Investment, we were thrilled with your response – you had lots of great ideas and were keen to tell us about them. And the pensions world tuned in closely too, interested in our approach, the conversation it generated and how other funds can learn from our approach.
You asked for clearer data about our Investments
We’re really excited to launch Tumelo, a new platform that tells you which companies we invest in, and how much we invest. We publish this information already, but the new format makes all the difference. It’s more digestible and engaging than ever before, and really brings the picture to life. We want to give you a better understanding of where your Fund invests, which we hope will give you a confident voice, to let us know what you think of our approach.
Visit the Tumelo platform today!
You asked for a Net Zero target
92% of members who took part in our member engagement work told us that they thought it was important that our Fund had a net zero target.
And so did the Pensions Committee. The Fund has agreed a target of getting to net zero by 2045.
This commitment is part of our long-running efforts to significantly reduce the emissions from the companies in our investment portfolio, while also continuing to invest in green solutions.
The ambitious decarbonisation target is backed by a science-based plan using data from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), with interim targets to ensure it’s on track. The Fund is already nearly 5 years ahead of target in terms of emission reductions to reach its 2045 goal.
But we never lose sight of the need to maintain our strong funding position. When we were crunching the data to set our net zero figure, we worked out that we had reduced emissions from our listed equity portfolio by 74% in the last decade, while growing the value of our investments by 94%.
And whilst we’re on the subject of funding position, the 2020-21 Annual Report and Accounts were laid in Parliament in July 2021. It’s a hugely detailed report, but in a nutshell – proves that investing responsibly in sustainable, greener solutions generates returns. Our funding ratio at March 21 is higher than ever before at 111%. You can see a summary of the report in the latest edition of ‘Spotlight’, or if you need the real detail the reports are available too.
Annual General Meeting (AGM)
Join us at our AGM on 24 November between 1:30 – 3pm where you can hear more about the fund and have your say too.
All members are welcome to join. We’ll tell you about how the committee runs, this year’s set of accounts, our investment approach and the administration of the Fund. We’ll have some guest speakers too including the Pensions Committee Chair, Robert Gould.
The AGM will be held on MS Teams. If you'd like join us, visit our EAPF AGM booking page.
How the EAPF Invests webinar
You can also hear more about How the EAPF invests in our webinar on 20 October at either 10am or 2pm.
If you'd like join us, visit our EAPF Pension webinars booking page.