Material Impact is a marketing and PR firm based in London, whose experience includes 61 clients in five continents, ranging from JP Morgan and $130 billion fund administrator Crestbridge to the Institute of Neurodiversity and Imperial College Business School. Established in January last year, it has eight members of staff, and an advisory board that includes Charlotte Valeur who was previously chair of the Institute of Directors.
The employer uses Nest as its pension provider, which was largely chosen for its environmental, social and governance (ESG) and responsible investment credentials, such as its approach to investing in green infrastructure and social housing, which generates returns while offseting carbon generating investments elsewhere in its portfolio. Nest also exercises its ownership rights, through voting and engaging with investee companies on social and environmental impact and corporate governance.
Daniel Jason, chief executive officer (CEO) at Material Impact, says: “[Nest has drawn] progressive trustees […] from a social advocacy background and the European asset management industry, which is used to meeting sustainability requirements of the Nordics.
Investing for our future means more than investing for just a financial future. Individuals and as a company, our ethos is to live and work sustainably, so it makes a great deal of sense to us that our Nest pensions are aligned with our mission and are working on solutions to the same problems.”
“Staff take great satisfaction from the fact that their pension investments will help make their future world a better place. Conversely, they would be unhappy for their pension provider to ignore ESG, and would find another provider when they were able to.”
Enrolled staff have logged in to their pensions account at least once in the last three months, but do not engage further other than the information packs and reports that are made available to them directly, either through their pensions accounts, emails from Nest or through the employer. “This is partly because individuals have looked at Nest’s website when being enrolled and understood their ethos to be in line with their own, and have largely left their investigations there,” explains Jason.