Fighting for fossil-free pensions

UK pension funds are investing a staggering £88 billion in fossil fuel companies that are fuelling the climate emergency. That works out at around £3,000 per pension fund member invested in some of the world’s biggest polluters. 

While oil and gas companies like BP, Equinor and Shell often make impressive-sounding promises to be ‘net zero by 2050’, the reality is that these corporations are continuing to expand the extraction and burning of fossil fuels whilst making huge profits, lobbying against meaningful climate action and abandoning their renewable energy projects.  

Our workplace pension funds are supposed to help us save for our retirement. By investing in fossil fuel companies that are driving up climate emissions at a time when people and wildlife across the globe are already suffering from record temperatures and extreme weather, UK pensions are funding climate chaos.  

The good news is that it doesn’t have to be this way. Our pensions have the potential to  help power a just transition to real climate solutions that can benefit communities here in Scotland and around the world.   

Fossil-free pensions campaign 

Friends of the Earth Scotland is joining our UK Divest partners at Platform London to launch a new fossil-free pensions campaign which will call on workplace pension funds to remove our savings from climate-wrecking fossil fuels.   

We’re starting with one of the UK’s biggest pension funds, Nest (the National Employment Savings Trust). Nest is a workplace pension scheme that was set up by the Government in 2010. It’s open to self-employed workers and to any employers who can auto-enrol their staff members into the scheme.  

As a public body, Nest does not have any owners or shareholders, and it’s meant to be run in the interests of its members. However, Nest’s default pension fund, the Retirement Date Fund, currently invests its members’ wages in some of the world’s worst climate polluters. This includes BP, Shell, TotalEnergies and the Norwegian oil giant, Equinor.  

This campaign will put pressure on Nest to divest their default fund from fossil fuels. We’ll do this by mobilising Nest members to switch their pension to Nest’s ethical fund, which does not invest in fossil fuels. By moving to the ethical fund, Nest members not only remove their money from big polluters like BP and Shell, but they also send a strong message to Nest that we want them to invest our wages to protect people and the planet, not the dirty profits of oil and gas companies. 

We’ll work together with workers, employers and unions to collectively show Nest that we want our workplace pensions to be fossil-free. 

How does divestment work? 

Divestment simply means no removing investment from unethical companies. Nest’s default pension fund currently invests in big polluters, weapons manufacturers, and other harmful companies.  

Fossil fuel companies are some of the wealthiest and most powerful companies on the planet, and they’re using their money, power and influence to block every serious attempt to stop climate change.  

By divesting – and, importantly, getting institutions like Nest to publicly break ties with fossil fuel companies – we can weaken the influence of the fossil fuel industry and block the money pipeline to oil and gas companies that are driving the climate crisis.  

Every time an institution publicly breaks its ties with fossil fuel companies, we chip away at polluters’ power to carry out their toxic activities and damaging business plans. 

So far, over 1,630 institutions have already pledged to divest around $40.76 trillion from planet-wrecking fossil fuel companies. These include some of the world’s biggest pensions such as New York City’s pension funds and the €237.8bn PFZW fund for healthcare and welfare workers in the Netherlands which divested €2.8bn from 310 fossil fuel companies earlier this year.   

With your help, we can call on Nest and other UK pension funds to join them.  

Targeting Nest 

Nest is the largest workplace pension provider in the UK, currently serving nearly 40% of workers (and counting!) That’s over 1 million businesses and over 12 million workers, with almost £43 billion held by Nest.  

When new members join Nest, they are automatically enrolled into the Retirement Date Fund which invests in major fossil fuel companies like BP, Shell, Equinor and TotalEnergies – that’s billions of workers’ hard-earned wages being funnelled into polluters that make our working lives harder and puts our future retirement at risk.  

With 99% of Nest members currently in the default fund, it’s time for us to switch to the ethical fund together and divest our salaries from fossil fuels.  

How can people get involved in the campaign 

If you have a workplace pension with Nest, you can switch to the fossil-free Ethical Fund in a few easy steps. This will move your own savings away from oil and gas companies that are driving climate breakdown and add to the growing number of Nest members who are calling on the fund to be fossil-free.