Less than 30% of large pension plans say they use ESG in investment process

Only 35 large pension funds out of 123 incorporated environmental, social and governance factors into the portfolio management process. That’s based on responses concerning ESG to Pensions & Investments’ latest annual top 1,000 retirement plan sponsor survey.

Examining the past five years, the responses peaked at 154 in 2021 with 45 pension plans (29%) affirming that they use ESG factors. The following year, 45 pension plans out of 138, or 33%, said they used ESG as part of their investment process.

Breaking out the responses by plan type, 24 out of 73 public pension plans used ESG factors in the investment process. Only three out of 34 corporate pension plans said they used ESG.

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