The Church of England Pension Board, which manages over £2.8bn for over 38,000 current and retired clergy and other employees of the Church of England, has launched the Financial Times Stock Exchange Transition Pathway Initiative (FTSE TPI) Climate Transition Index in collaboration with LSE’s Grantham Research Institute. The fund, building off the Transition Pathway Initiative which is co-chaired by the Church of England, Environment Agency Pension Fund and the Grantham Institute is backed by 62 funds with over US $18 trillion of combined assets under management or assets under advice.
The fund aims to offer an environmentally sustainable investment option. It sets climate-based conditions, alongside economic ones, by assessing the alignment of different companies with the Paris agreement goal to keep global warming below 2 degrees Celsius. These conditions were decided in part based on research by the Grantham Institute, a research institute at LSE that acts as the umbrella body for the school’s research on climate change and its environmental impact.
Adam Matthews, Co-Chair of the Initiative and Director of Ethics and Engagement for the Church of England Pensions Board, said in the launch of the fund, “The message is clear to all publicly listed companies: put in place targets and strategies aligned to Paris and be rewarded with inclusion in the Index or work against the long term interests of beneficiaries and wider society and be excluded.”
According to a Church of England spokesman, “Under the index, the Pensions Board portfolio will have a 49.1% lower carbon intensity than its current passive allocation.”
