Latest news & announcements

Partnering with Brunel Pension Partnership, the Fund has signed up to the IIGCC Net Zero Framework to accelerate the transition to net-zero global emissions.

The Avon Pension Fund has published its eighth Responsible Investment Annual Report. The report underlines the Funds recognition that transparency and disclosure of its Responsible Investing Policy and the related activities is an important element of being a responsible investor.

The report details the activities undertaken during 2019/20 by the Fund, our managers and our partners to deliver and support our Responsible Investing Policy.

This year’s key achievements include the doubling of our commitment to renewable infrastructure and increasing our assets allocated to sustainable equities from 3.5% to 10% of all assets.

As we recognise the importance of investor collaboration, another key development we were pleased to make was joining the Institutional Investors Group on Climate Change (IIGCC). This presents us with the opportunity to participate in policy advocacy and portfolio implementation work alongside many like-minded investors and will help us ensure we continue as a leader in the field of responsible investment.

Our Responsible Investment priorities remain unchanged for the coming year as does our commitment to create value for our beneficiaries and at the same time make a positive environmental and social impact.

Responsible Investing Annual Report 2019/20

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.

Amidst the unprecedented market volatility in March, companies responding positively to the challenges of climate change, environmental sustainability and social well-being were able to demonstrate their value. Over the first three months of the year, the Fund’s low carbon global equities outperformed the mainstream equity market and our sustainable equity portfolio experienced roughly half of the severe declines suffered by its benchmark.

We continue to make progress in the following areas, which remain critical if we are to achieve our ambitious climate change goals:

We are currently consulting on our draft Investment Strategy Statement (ISS) with stakeholders.  It is a technical document that is drafted to comply with LGPS regulations and guidance.

The ISS sets out how the Fund will achieve its primary strategic objective of paying the pensions due over time.  This entails balancing the risk within the portfolio between generating returns and protecting capital, recognising our responsibility as a shareholder/investor and how the Fund can contribute to resolving materially financial global issues and at the same time ensuring it maintains affordability for employers. We acknowledge it is difficult to achieve all the differing aspirations and objectives of our stakeholders; our strategy includes those that are aligned with the primary objective and where they do not increase the financial risk to the Fund and our ability to pay pensions.

This Statement incorporates changes resulting from the Fund’s most recent investment strategy review including changes to the asset allocation and the setting of climate change objectives. The setting of explicit climate objectives reflects the Fund’s belief that climate change presents a material financial risk to our assets and managing this risk is consistent with our over-arching fiduciary duty to the scheme members.

Feedback on the ISS from scheme members will be considered alongside comments from other key stakeholders such as the Pension Board, employers and trade unions ahead of the document being finalised in September.

Please submit comments by 12 August 2020 to AvonPF_Investments@bathnes.gov.uk

Draft Investment Strategy Statement