“A huge 89% majority of the world’s people want stronger action to fight the climate crisis, studies have shown, but are trapped in a self fulfilling spiral of silence because they mistakenly believe they are in a minority.”

Similar research suggests we feel the same way about how our pensions are invested, with nearly 80% of us wanting our money invested sustainably. Yet many of us do not question how our pension money is invested, believing there is little we can do about it.

The changes we can make individually, in how our pensions are invested, are likely to have far greater effects than anything we can do day to day. Greening our pensions is 21 x more effective than giving up flying, switching to a vegan diet and changing to a renewable energy supplier all put together.

Pensions play a really important role in our lives because they represent the largest pot of money most of us will ever have to invest. Money we put aside over the duration of our working lives,  but likely ignore because we don’t realise that we have any say over how it is invested. Understanding that we do can lead to the realisation of just how much power we actually have.

The average pension fund is linked to annual carbon emissions of around 23 tonnes.. By switching to greener funds that figure can be reduced to under 10 tonnes. 

Pensions are there to support us later in life, so the future they create matters too.