Strathclyde Pension Fund urged to end investments in companies fuelling climate crisis and genocide in Gaza

Palestine solidarity, climate and trade union groups joined a demonstration outside Glasgow City Chambers today to call on the Strathclyde Pension Fund to stop investing an estimated £434 million in fossil fuel companies that are fuelling the climate crisis and the genocide in Palestine.

They are demanding an end to the fund’s investment in three of the world’s biggest polluters, Shell, TotalEnergies and Italian oil giant, Eni, and to commit to future divestment from arms and technology used in the ongoing genocide.

Recent research by Oil Change International revealed that all three companies are supplying oil to Israel and are complicit in fuelling the genocide of the Palestinian people.

According to the latest investment figures from March 2025, Strathclyde Pension Fund invests £41.3 million in Eni, £12.5 million in French oil company TotalEnergies and £11.8 million in Royal Dutch Shell.

Groups protesting included Unison Scotland, Glasgow Trades Union Council, Time to Divest Glasgow, Friends of the Earth Scotland, Extinction Rebellion Glasgow, Protest in Harmony Glasgow and Divest Strathclyde who gathered ahead of today’s Strathclyde Pension Fund Committee meeting.

Matthew Jones from Time to Divest Glasgow said,
“It is clear that the genocide in Gaza will be seen as one of history’s great crimes. The International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Court have stated that crimes are taking place, that the occupation of Gaza and the West Bank are illegal and that governments and other bodies including investors must act.”

“Hundreds of legal experts in Britain have similarly demanded action because inaction will put responsible entities in breach of international and British law. It is time to divest from companies involved with Israel and particularly those directly involved in the genocide to protect ourselves and Strathclyde Pension Fund from being complicit in these war crimes.”

The demonstration comes four years after the Glasgow City councillors voted in favour of divesting the Strathclyde Pension Fund from fossil fuels. The fund has still not set a timeline or strategy for ending investments to deliver on this demand.

Stuart Graham from the Unison Scotland International Committee said,
“In 2021 Strathclyde Pension Fund claimed it was putting fossil fuel companies on notice that, if they don’t take their responsibilities on climate seriously, they would be dropped from the portfolio. Four years on, what progress has been made? The deferred wages of Council and public sector workers are literally fuelling the genocide of the Palestinian people by its investments in Eni, Shell and Total providing Israel with oil to continue its war crimes.”

“We demand that Strathclyde Pension Fund invests in life and the local infrastructure Glasgow requires to move towards a low carbon economy that would create jobs and long-term investments, not investing in energy companies that are driving global climate breakdown while enabling and profiting from genocide. Nor do we want our retirement based on the profits of war through financing weapons manufacturers, particularly when it is always the working class against whom these weapons are used.”

Sally Clark, divestment campaigner at Friends of the Earth Scotland, said,
“It is shocking that Strathclyde Pension Fund is continuing to invest millions of pounds of members’ wages in companies that are driving the genocide in Palestine and destroying the planet.”

“With 2024 confirmed as the hottest year on record and extreme weather devastating the world it has never been more urgent for Strathclyde Pension Fund to stop funding genocide and climate breakdown and instead to invest in solutions that can benefit communities here in Scotland such as warm homes, wind power and social housing.”

To date, over $40.76 trillion has been divested from fossil fuels by over 1660 institutions, including the Church of Scotland and the Universities of Glasgow, Edinburgh and Aberdeen.

Last year, one of the world’s biggest pension funds, ABP, divested over €10 billion from fossil fuel companies because of the failure of these companies to reduce their harm to the climate and biodiversity.

In March last year, Glasgow City Council passed a motion where it recognised that the ICJ’s ruling places moral obligations on institutions in the UK at all levels of government to ensure they are not directly or indirectly supporting genocide.

Direct investments in companies that profit directly or indirectly from genocide exist still in Strathclyde Pension Fund’s portfolio, in the complete asset list, over a year on from this.

Campaigners urge Glasgow City Council Pension Committee, as the administrating body of Strathclyde Pension Fund, to act decisively to ensure it acts in line with its commitments and avoid allegations of directly or indirectly supporting genocide via its investment strategies.