The UK-based Pensions Climate Risk Industry Group (PCRIG) has launched a public consultation on non-statutory guidance for the trustees of occupational pension schemes on assessing, managing and reporting climate-related risks.
PCRIG was set up last summer by the UK’s Department of Work and Pensions and other government departments to develop industry-wide guidance for pension scheme trustees on climate-related risks and voluntary alignment with the recommendations of the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD).
The draft guide is designed to help trustees meet existing legal obligations to consider financially material factors in their investment decision making.
It also provides suggestions on how to integrate the consideration of climate-related risks within trustee governance and risk management processes.
The guide is aimed at trustees of private sector schemes (covering both defined benefit and defined contribution schemes), but sections of the guide are likely to be relevant to managers of funded public sector schemes.
The UK government has said it expects all listed companies and large asset owners, including occupational pension schemes, to disclose in line with TCFD by 2022.
Speaking at the launch of the consultation at the PLSA’s investment conference in Edinburgh, Guy Opperman, the UK’s pensions minister, said: “I am committed to ensuring all pension scheme trustees do everything they can to act to limit the risk climate change poses to their members’ future retirement income.
“TCFD is the most widely-adopted way in which organisations are managing and reporting climate risk, and I want to ensure all trustees have the help they need to align their schemes with its recommendations. That is why I welcome this guidance and the subsequent consultation.”
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