Agenda item

Report by the Director of Finance (PF5)

The report provides the feedback to the Committee on the recent consultation exercise on the Investment Strategy Statement including the Climate Change Policy, and proposes final changes to the draft document.

The Committee is RECOMMENDED to consider the responses to the recent consultation exercise and approve the changes to the draft documents as set out in the report and incorporated in Annex 3.

It was agreed to consider Item 7, Investment Strategy and Item 8, Climate Change Policy Implementation Plan together.

The Local Pension Board had before them the report to Pension Fund Committee that provided the feedback to the Committee on the recent consultation exercise on the Investment Strategy Statement including the Climate Change Policy, and that proposed final changes to the draft document.

The Local Pension Board also had before it a report to Pension Fund Committee that set out how the Pension Fund plans to implement its Climate Change Policy (hereinafter referred to as ‘the Policy’). The key commitment of the Policy is to transition investment portfolios to net-zero Greenhouse Gas Emissions (GHG) by 2050, consistent with seeking to limit the temperature increase to 1.5ºC above pre-industrial levels. The actions in the implementation plan had been developed to work towards delivery of this commitment.

Sean Collins, Service Manager Pensions introduced the contents of both reports. He noted that the number of consultation responses had been disappointing but that those received were mostly in support of the direction of travel. The second report looked at actions to be taken in support of the Policy and included carbon emission targets. Sean noted that there was still a lot of work to do and there would be quarterly progress reports. They continued to work with Fossil Free Oxfordshire, and Sean added that Alistair Bastin was a scheme member representative on the Working Group that had been established. Sean also noted that the collaboration was being written up nationally as a case study and Alistair commented that he would be happy to be involved in that. It was agreed that Alistair receive a copy of the draft case study for comment. Sean advised that following a lengthy debate at the last meeting the Pension Fund Committee had endorsed the Policy and the implementation plan.

During discussion members:

• Highlighted that the pandemic had had a profound effect on the use of fossil fuels with oil consumption down and large producers being forced to make write offs on ‘to be exploited’ assets. This would need to be taken into account in future investment decisions. Sean commented that those issues were what would be considered as part of those investment decisions but that it did not affect the Investment Strategy or implementation plan.
• Queried why there were no performance figures to the June meeting of the Pension Fund Committee. Sean explained that the situation was too volatile and that the figures for March 2020 would have been irrelevant to the situation in June 2020. There had been a summary from the Independent Financial Adviser.
• Commented that the active management response to covid 19 was worse than the passive fund management. Referred to information on asset allocation and queried why the Committee had not moved into Passive Low Carbon options. Sean explained that this had been fully discussed at the March meeting of the Committee. The current low carbon option was not compliant with The Policy and Brunel were developing compliant passive fund options. Once developed the funds would be moved just the one time into the compliant options. It was expensive to transition twice.

RESOLVED: To note both reports and that the comments and responses above be reported to the Pension Fund Committee.