In part 2 of this series, we cover our Fund performance, our investment approach, webinars, joining our Pension Committee and how you can become carbon responsible.
Your Fund’s investments continue to perform well
Your pension benefits in the EAPF are secure and guaranteed, which is reassuring considering the situation with the current cost of living. But behind the scenes, your Fund invests employer and employee contributions. The great news is that our investments have continued to perform well. Despite difficult times, the return on the Fund’s investments was 12.2% in 2021.
Want to know more about our investment approach?
As part of our annual suite of webinars, we always run a couple of webinars on how we invest which explore our approach to responsible investment.
This year it will include a progress report on our net zero target of 2045. And if you want to know why the target is 2045, and not 2030 like one of our employer bodies, then come along and find out more. Your feedback is very welcome.
In 2022, we invested in an innovative new fund, which focuses on lending to companies which want to move to a lower carbon way of doing things – for example providing the finance so that they can buy a new bit of kit to reduce their manufacturing emissions. The fact that the EAPF, a respected investor internationally, decided to be a cornerstone investor in the fund made headlines in the finance world. We hope the range of investment products like this continues to grow and grow.
And we’ve also been in the press over summer for investing in UK water companies. In the webinar we will be explaining the types of investments we’ve made, why and how we ensure there is no conflict of interest.
For a summary of what we did in 2021, see our 2 page report taken from our Submission to the UK Stewardship Code.
Book your place to join our webinar at bookwhen.com/eapf-pension-webinars
An opportunity to join your Fund’s Committee
The EAPF is governed by a Pensions Committee, which consists of 14 people, of which 7 are pension fund ‘Member Reps’. Colin Chiverton has been championing the rights of members for what will be 10 years when he retires from the Pensions Committee at Easter 2023.
It isn’t easy to capture in a few lines here the dedication that Colin has shown to this role. As Colin is moving on, there’s an opportunity for someone else to take up the baton as a member representative. Watch out for our email campaign on this later in the year.
Want to become carbon responsible?
Thank you to the 200+ members who’ve already calculated their carbon footprint - and we know from our Contributing members that many of you undertook a calculation through work channels too.
A good thing is always worth repeating and through this campaign, we’re reaching out to our Deferred and Pensioner members as well. If you haven’t already calculated your carbon footprint, why not try the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) carbon calculator, and see what you could do to help to reduce your footprint?
Visit our ‘Become carbon responsible’ page for more details.
Read Part 1 of our EAPF Pension Awareness Week campaign here
Read Part 3 of our EAPF Pension Awareness Week campaign here