M&S scheme set to announce carbon reduction target
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The pension fund of high street retailer M&S is planning to announce a carbon reduction target before the start of the next financial year, after its parent company said it aims to be net zero by 2040. The fund has already started shifting some equity investments to an ESG tilted index.
The M&S trustees say they take account of environmental, social and governance factors across all areas of the scheme’s investments and have set up an ESG committee to explore the opportunities and risks within ESG and make recommendations to the board.
Scheme sponsor M&S has recently announced its commitment to be fully net zero by 2040. The trustees of its roughly £11bn pension scheme said they are “keen to align the pension scheme with M&S, and we expect to announce our carbon reduction targets before the start of the next financial year”.
LGIM snaps up ESG equity mandate
The fund is currently reviewing its greenhouse gas emissions and carbon footprint in line with the recommendations of the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures. These will be reported next year, together with interim and long-term targets to rapidly reduce portfolio emissions.
In the 2020/21 reporting year, the fund, which is a UNPRI and Stewardship Code signatory, has moved several portions of its assets into ESG tilted investments with Legal & General Investment Management, terminating a passive global developed equity mandate with BlackRock and transitioning its RAFI equity mandates with LGIM to the new tilted passive global equity brief.
LGIM has also been appointed to run a passive emerging market equity mandate with an ESG tilt, which is funded from an active emerging market equity mandate.
Aside from these changes, the fund said it has designed and implemented scheme-specific ESG monitoring for all equity and fixed income assets through its custodian.
