Six pension fund members of the Brunel Pension Partnership committed £330 million ($404 million) to Schroders Greencoat, the specialist renewables manager of Schroders Capital, the organizations said in a joint news release Oct. 11.
That represents the largest commitment by U.K. local government pension schemes to locally based renewable energy infrastructure projects, they said. "Together we can use our scale to make a substantial, widespread positive impact, actively investing in and benefiting from the transition to a low-carbon economy," said Jennifer Devine, head of the Wiltshire Pension Fund and representative for the six LGPS partners, in the news release.
The £35 billion Brunel Pension Partnership, Bristol, England, invests for 10 local government pension funds. In February, it revamped its climate-change policy with higher expectations for recruiting and monitoring managers, said Faith Ward, chief responsible investment officer at Brunel, at the time.
The Schroders Greencoat mandate will make long-term investments in renewable infrastructure and energy transition assets across southwestern England that are also expected to create jobs in the area. The investments will include traditional renewable energy projects in solar photovoltaic cells and wind, and innovative energy transition subsectors such as battery storage and green hydrogen production.
The mandate targets investments in the counties of Dorset, Somerset, Avon, Cornwall, Devon, Wiltshire, Oxfordshire, Buckinghamshire and Gloucestershire.
Schroders Greencoat's aggregate managed assets in the U.K. currently total 2.8 gigawatts in energy capacity. It has a record of creating funds in collaboration with local government pension schemes, including a £500 million private equity mandate in January from £22.5 billion Wales Pension Partnership, Carmarthen, a collaboration of eight LGPS in Wales.
Schroders Greencoat has £8.6 billion in assets under management, while Schroders Capital has $86.7 billion and parent company Schroders has $923.1 billion, according to the release.
