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Our 2024 Responsible Investment Report highlights the investment risks and opportunities the Fund faces. These include climate change, human rights and biodiversity. 

This year we examine the investment case for solar energy, positive impact via affordable housing investments and a forward look on natural capital investing.

We outline our focus areas for 2025 to ensure we meet our environmental, social, and financial priorities.

Our 2024 strategy includes a commitment to local impact investments, an approach embodied in our recent collaborative investment in south-west solar farms. Find out more in the case study, including where we plan to invest next for local impact. 

As committed responsible investors for over 20 years, our strategy covers our approach to responsible investing. You can also read about our approach to reaching net zero by 2045.

The new investment forms part of the largest operational solar deal ever transacted in the UK. It involves the Avon, Cornwall, Devon, Gloucestershire, Oxfordshire and Wiltshire LGPS Funds, who share a strong commitment to tackling climate change. The collaborative investment in south-west solar will generate around 196MW, enough to power nearly 70,000 homes.

Avon Pension Fund has announced an ambitious new goal to be net zero across all its investments by 2045. The latest move builds on significant work already completed by the Fund to maximise the real-world impact of its £5.4 billion investment portfolio. 

The economic and societal impact of Covid-19 is now becoming more apparent and poses many additional challenges for companies, consumers, governments and investors alike. In our last newsletter we communicated our plans to directly address the risks posed by climate change. As we start to adjust to the ‘new normal’ it is important we redouble our efforts to transform our portfolio for a lower carbon world.

Brunel Pension Partnership has been named the Pension fund of the year by Environmental Finance. It also picked up another award for ESG Initiative of the Year.

Avon Pension Fund joins 100+ investors, representing over €11 trillion in assets, to call on EU leaders to ensure a sustainable economic recovery from COVID-19 which supports the EU Green Deal & upholds the Paris Agreement.

In January we published details of a landmark shareholder resolution co-filed by Brunel Pension Partnership calling on Barclays to set and disclose targets to phase out its financing of fossil fuel companies where they are not aligned with the goals of the Paris Climate Agreement. The outcome of the meeting has been hailed a success with Barclays’ own resolution winning majority support and committing them to becoming net carbon zero by 2050.

We are all witnessing the impact of climate change on our lives and many of our employers have declared climate emergencies in recent months. The current global health crisis underscores the importance of mitigating such risks on a global scale. Climate change, in particular, represents a systemic risk to people, the planet, and to the investment returns which are necessary to enable payment of pensions. The need for action on the climate crisis is more critical now than ever before.

Brunel Pension Partnership Limited (Brunel) is one of eight national pooled funds and manages the investment of the pension assets for the funds of Avon, Buckinghamshire, Cornwall, Devon, Dorset, Environment Agency, Gloucestershire, Oxfordshire, Somerset and Wiltshire. Brunel manages circa £30 billion investments on behalf of these 10 Local Government Pension Scheme funds.