Strathclyde Pension Fund’s public equity portfolio, excluding smaller companies, was analyzed in a carbon footprint exercise, finding it to be 7% less carbon intensive than the MSCI All Country World index, as of March 31, according to minutes of a Monday committee meeting.
The Glasgow, Scotland-based £18.7 billion ($23.3 billion) pension fund’s aggregate active equity holdings, excluding smaller companies, is 4.5% lower than the MSCI All Country World index, and its aggregate passive equity exposure is 9.6% less carbon intensive than the index. The pension fund had a total £5.8 billion, or 36.5%, allocated to equities as of March 31, showed its latest annual report.
The committee said it would continue to review the carbon footprint of the pension fund’s public equity holdings every two years and will investigate the inclusion of other asset classes in its carbon footprint analysis. Executives will also continue work to engage with the 10 largest contributors to the pension fund’s active equity carbon footprint, which together account for 44.9% of the footprint.
The minutes also said the pension fund will join the Institutional Investors Group on Climate Change, a forum for collaboration between pension funds and other institutional investors on issues that relate to climate change.
The committee will not adopt a low-carbon investment strategy yet, but it will continue to monitor the development of these approaches, according to the minutes.
A spokesman for Glasgow City Council, the administering authority for the pension fund, could not be reached for comment by press time.
