The West Yorkshire Pension Fund (WYPF), administered by Bradford Council, has faced renewed calls to cut off investments in Shell and BP.
As world leaders attended the United Nations Climate Ambition Summit in New York, campaigners gathered outside the West Yorkshire Pension Fund’s offices at Aldermanbury House.
The fund’s advisory group believes “divestment has no real-world impact on reducing carbon emissions”.
But fossil-free campaigners believes investments must stop in light of the wildfires and flooding seen in parts of the world.
Wakefield councillor Hilary Mitchell, who is a member of West Yorkshire Pension Fund’s Investment Panel, said: “All summer, we’ve seen the terrifying reality of climate change. Wildfires and floods across the world have been on our television screens every week. We know that burning oil and gas destroys our climate and we know we must – and we can – switch to clean energy.
“What’s more, we can do this in a way that’s fair for workers in high carbon industries by supporting them to transfer their skills, pay, terms and conditions into new industries – like making wind turbines, fitting solar panels and super-insulating peoples’ homes, to cut carbon and energy bills.
“Yet the West Yorkshire Pension Fund still invests around £500 million in companies like Shell and BP, who make vast profits – at our expense – by selling oil and gas to be burned which pollutes our climate. This simply has to stop.”
A spokesperson for WYPF said it recognises both recognises the risks of climate change to its investments and the concerns of those arguing for divestment from fossil fuel companies.
It comes after WYPF set out its plans to address these issues in its Responsible Investment Policy and its TCFD Statement, published on its website wypf.org.uk.
The fund says it is committed to achieving Net Zero emissions for its investments by 2050 and is signed up to the Institutional Investors Group’s Climate Change (IIGCC) Net Zero commitment statement.
WYPF’s investment in renewable energy assets, technology and sustainable infrastructure has increased significantly over the last few years, a spokesperson said.
The spokesperson said: “WYPF’s transition to Net Zero will happen by helping the companies in which it invests to adjust to the new realities of climate change.
“The Fund’s ability to influence companies is derived exclusively from its economic interest: as fractional owners of companies, managements are the fund’s agents and the fund has the ability to remove managers through voting if they fail to act.
“Conversely, there is no realistic roadmap of how divestment leads to better corporate behaviour. Divestment has no real-world impact on reducing carbon emissions. If WYPF sells an asset, then someone buys and nothing else changes. The new owner of the asset may not share WYPF’s responsible investment and stewardship principles. Divestment is therefore both a missed opportunity to enact real change and arguably an abdication of responsibility.”
