Latest news

The Avon Pension Fund is pleased to publish its latest Responsible Investment Annual Report.

The report details the activities undertaken during 2021 by the Fund, our managers and our partners to deliver and support our Responsible Investing Policy.

Following a consultation, in 2017 the Taskforce on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD) issued initial recommendations for reporting to help stakeholders in financial markets understand their climate risks and opportunities. This covers the areas of Governance, Strategy, Risk and Metrics & Targets and Avon Pension Fund has now adopted this guidance and set out its own disclosures in this report.

Avon Pension Fund is pleased to announce it is transitioning its entire legacy low carbon equity strategy (~£780m) into the recently launched Paris Aligned Benchmark (PAB) developed by FTSE Russell and Brunel Pension Partnership.  

At Avon Pension Fund, diversity is an integral part of our Responsible Investment strategy and as such a key priority. To help address the issue and build an investment industry that embodies a more balanced representation of diverse societies, we have recently signed-up to the Asset Owner Diversity Charter.

With the G7 Summit taking place this weekend in Cornwall, we’re proud to announce that we are a signatory of the 2021 Global Investor Statement to Governments on the Climate Crisis.

In signing this document, we stand alongside 456 other investors worldwide with a combined asset-worth of over $41 trillion. It calls on all governments in 2021 to increase their climate policy action and ambition urgently by COP26 (UN Climate Change Conference) in November.

Our 2021 Carbon Metrics Report details the weighted average carbon intensity (WACI), fossil fuel related revenues, reserves exposure and the disclosure rates among companies within the Fund's listed equity portfolio.

In light of the Climate Emergency, there is growing pressure on countries and organisations alike to publicise what they are doing to address and tackle the issue. As your Pension Fund, we know it is our responsibility to be transparent and to explain our actions in the matter, especially when it comes to investment. We’re pleased to have a new tool in our box to help us keep that promise, that we’d like to share with you.

Intensive engagement by Brunel and the coalition of investors that filed a climate change resolution at HSBC, calling on them to publish a strategy to reduce exposure to fossil fuel assets on a timeline consistent with the Paris climate goals, has led to the withdrawal of the shareholder resolution. This is in exchange for HSBC’s own board-backed resolution.