Climate change and your pension

Jan 22, 2021
Climate change is a major issue for many reasons, but did you know it can also affect your pension?


The costs of climate change, caused by extreme weather events and the move towards a carbon-neutral economy, can have a significant impact on companies and the financial markets.

This in turn means it can affect the assets of a fund like ours, and ultimately affect your pension pot.  

With this in mind, the Fund's investment manager, RPMI Railpen, considers climate change in all its investment decisions and takes action to reduce the risks to your savings wherever needed.

It’s all part of an investment process designed to:

  • improve investment returns
  • reduce investment risk
  • have a positive effect on the world people retire into
  • ensure RPMI Railpen is a responsible investor

In terms of climate change in particular, this includes:

  • sourcing low carbon opportunities
  • encouraging the companies we invest in to act on climate change
  • withdrawing investment on climate grounds

RPMI Railpen also actively supports a number of global climate change initiatives, including:

  • the Task Force on Climate-Related Financial Disclosures (TCFD) – which develops consistent climate-related financial risk disclosures for companies to report to investors
  • Climate Action 100+ (CA100+) - an investor initiative targeting the 100 largest carbon emitters
  • the Montreal Carbon Pledge – which asks companies to measure and publish their own carbon footprint each year

The company recently published its first stand-alone Climate-Related Disclosure, explaining RPMI Railpen’s work on climate change to date and its plans for the future. This will be updated every year to reflect the fast moving nature of climate change and you can read it in full here