Protecting your pension and the planet

Shift: Action for Pension Wealth and Planet Health is a charitable initiative that works to protect pensions and the climate by bringing together beneficiaries and their pension funds on the climate crisis. We help Canadians understand where their retirement wealth is invested by tracking pension fund investments and strategy. We educate and empower Canadians on how to engage constructively with their pension funds to address the climate crisis. Now is the time for Canada’s pension funds to shift their investment approach and invest in a prosperous zero-carbon future.

Institutional investors around the world are moving quickly to protect their portfolios from the financial risks of climate change and invest in a safe climate future.

The Canadian pension sector is falling behind, and remains invested in the oil, gas, coal and pipeline companies whose business models are increasingly challenged by disruptive clean technologies, ambitious government climate action, and public pressure to stop endangering our collective future. 

All Canadian pension funds must implement comprehensive, credible climate strategies:

They must exclude new investments in fossil fuels and disclose a plan to phase out existing fossil fuel investments or profitably wind down those investments’ production of fossil fuels.

Already, nearly 1,500 institutional investors globally with US$40 trillion in assets have pledged to stop investing in fossil fuels. This includes the largest pension fund in Europe, the third largest pension fund in the United States, and the largest pension fund in the United Kingdom by membership. In Canada, the manager of the Quebec pension plan ended all investments in oil producers.

They must make a Paris-aligned net-zero emissions commitment.

Ontario’s University Pension Plan, for example, has committed to net-zero emissions by 2040.

Pensions funds must match this commitment with short- and medium-term emissions reduction targets.

The Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan, for example, has committed to reduce the emissions intensity of its portfolio by two-thirds by 2030.

Pension funds must implement a robust engagement strategy to ensure the companies they own have credible, science-based climate targets and a plan to achieve them.

UK pension scheme Nest, for example, has strong proxy voting guidelines on climate, sets rigorous climate expectations of its external managers, and discloses details of select climate engagements.

Pension funds must direct significant capital toward climate solutions.

The Investment Management Corporation of Ontario, for example, will invest 20% of its assets in climate solutions by 2030. The Healthcare of Ontario Pension Plan has committed to $23 billion in green investments by 2030.

It’s realistic to ask your pension fund to do more for climate change. Shift helps pension fund beneficiaries engage with their pension managers to make this shift.