How Can I Green My Pension?
Please remember this is not financial advice!
☎️ Individuals are increasingly more concerned about tackling the climate emergency, and greening your pension is one of the best ways to make a positive impact with your money. Today, I speak to the lovely Izzy Howden, Policy and Campaigns Advisor at Make My Money Matter, about the power of green pensions.
🍃 Make My Money Matter is a people-powered campaign fighting for a world where the public have the knowledge and power to align their pensions, savings and investments with their values. There are £2.6trillion in UK pensions, and Make My Money Matter are determined to make them be a force for good.
💥 Today on The Wallet:
1️⃣ People often don’t realise that their pension is invested in industries they don’t want to support, so Izzy talks about why awareness matters and how powerful greening your pension can be.
2️⃣ Contacting your pension provider and finding out where your money is invested can sound like a difficult task, but Izzy outlines the steps you can take what you can do if they don’t offer a green option.
3️⃣ It’s easy to feel overwhelmed when it comes to trying to make a difference. Izzy highlights what you can do to have a real knock-on effect on and an impact at scale.
***
You can listen and subscribe here:
***
Why greening your pension is powerful
When we say greening your pension, we mean putting your pension in a sustainable fund, so it’s invested sustainably, as opposed to the default fund that most people are in.
People don’t realise that how their money is invested could be undermining their efforts in their everyday lives. For example, doctors might not know that their pension might be invested in the tobacco industries, etc.
Make My Money Matter conducted research that showed that when you green your pension, your carbon footprint could be reduced by 21 times when compared to going veggie, stopping flying and switching to a renewable energy provider.
As a campaign, Make Money Matter want all default funds to be green, because some 95% of people begin in the default fund that’s offered by their pension fund, and they usually don’t switch from that fund.
Make Money Matter found that 21 million people in the UK would pick the green option if they were offered it. Between 15-34 year olds, 67% of that demographic would prefer to invest in a green option.
How to talk to your pension provider
Contacting your employer or pension provider is really easy thanks to Make Money Matter’s template that you can access for free on their website.
If you find that your employer or pension provider doesn’t offer a green option, you can ask your employer to engage with the pension provider and use their power to do that on your behalf.
While pension funds might not be used to hearing from pension holders, but they’re obliged to respond to you because it’s your money — don’t forget to remind yourself of that connection!
Don’t be afraid to keep contacting your pension providers to demand answers until you are satisfied.
Making an impact with your money
As soon as you ask yourself the question of, ‘where is my money right now and what is it doing for the world?’, you will have a realisation that money needs to be a part of everything else that you do to live sustainably.
There’s space for all of us to have a conversation about finance and investments, and your voice matters.
If you think about it, the adjustments a lot of us make to live more sustainably, eg. forgoing fast fashion, reducing consumption, and eating less meat, switching to a green pension requires less ongoing effort.
It’s also important to consider who you bank with on a day-to-day basis. Izzy decided to switch to a provider that took the climate emergency seriously.
Don’t forget to spread the word — collective action helps drive change.
You can follow and connect with Izzy and MMM at:
- https://makemymoneymatter.co.uk/