Does your company’s pension scheme match your own sustainability values?

We all want to do our bit to minimise our impact on the environment, but do you know if your workplace pension scheme has the same ‘green’ footprint as the rest of your operations?

Minimising your environmental impact and creating a better world may be integral to what your business does, but it’s all too easy to overlook what your pension scheme can do to support these efforts.

The first job of a workplace pension scheme is to help provide a comfortable retirement for its members when they finish working. However, what many employers forget is that their employees’ pension scheme can help to deliver not only long-term financial growth but also a safer, healthier world into which they can retire.

In fact, making your pension green is 21x more powerful at cutting your carbon than giving up flying, going veggie and switching energy provider.*

With responsibility comes opportunity

Because a workplace pension scheme is chosen by you, as an employer, you can actively help to reduce the environmental impact and carbon footprint of the investments made with your employees’ pension savings. In the last couple of years, there has been an increasing awareness of how retirement saving can be more environmentally friendly – and this has come alongside a demand for pension schemes to be sustainable as a standard when they invest members’ money.

How does your company pension compare when it comes to the choice of funds on offer to your employees and their environmental impact and carbon footprint? Not all pension providers are equal, so make sure that yours embraces sustainability in its investments, its targets and its approach to climate change.

Smart Pension – committed to sustainability and the environment

At Smart Pension, we have recently launched three new fully sustainable lifestyle strategies with different growth fund options: the Smart Sustainable Growth Core Fund, Smart Sustainable Growth Fund (the Smart Pension default fund) and Smart Sustainable Growth Plus Fund. The growth funds invest in funds that positively contribute to the planet and society, including investing in areas such as renewable energy projects, clean water and healthcare.

Our Smart Pension Master Trust recently announced that it has halved the emissions of its default growth fund. This is over two years ahead of our 50% reduction target and represents considerable progress towards our aim to make our default growth fund net zero by 2040. It’s also well ahead of the goals of the Paris Agreement, which called for emissions to be reduced by 45% by 2030 and to reach net zero by 2050.

If you would like to know more about how to review your current pension scheme’s sustainability or the way we can help you reduce your environmental impact, we’d love to talk – please contact us on fcsa@smartpension.co.uk or 0330 1247 409.

*Source: Make My Money Matter