Half of employees (51%) want to know that their pension scheme is invested in environmentally and socially sustainable organisations, a new study has found.
The research from Cushon showed that, broken down by generation, 60% of millenials are keen to have greener pension investments.
Almost half (48%) of savers mistakenly believe that either pensions can only be invested in organisations that don’t have a negative impact on the environment, or they do not know whether there are rules around this.
Additionally, 13% of employees wrongly believe that it is illegal for their employers to invest in an organisation that contributes to climate change, and 45% think there should be rules about the impact that pension investments have on the climate.
Ben Pollard, Founder and CEO of Cushon, said: “People clearly want their pensions to be a force for good, and to have a positive impact on things they feel strongly about.
“With all this confusion and misunderstanding, pension providers need to work faster to enable savers to have their voices heard and to align investments with fundamental issues like the fight against climate change.”
Pollard added that it’s easy to overlook the power of a pension, despite UK pension funds controlling more than £2.5 trillion of assets.
“Private markets in the US spent around £15 billion building Tesla which is now worth over a trillion dollars. The UK pensions industry could have built Tesla 170 times over,” he concluded.