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Entanglement Raises Questions About Climate Efforts

The deep entanglement between the fossil fuel industry and directors, trustees, and investment managers at Canada’s largest public pension funds raises serious questions from beneficiaries about their pension administrators’ ability to objectively manage climate-related financial risks and make critical climate-related investment decisions, says the ‘Climate-conflicted pension managers: The oil & gas insiders overseeing Canadians’ retirement savings’ report from Shift Action for Pension Wealth and Planet Health. It shows 80 different pension directors, trustees, executives, and senior staff from Canada’s 10 largest pension funds currently hold or previously held 124 different roles with 76 different fossil fuel companies. “A director on the board of my pension plan is bound by fiduciary duty to invest my retirement savings in my best long-term interests, but she also has a legal responsibility to act in the best financial interests of ARC Resources as a corporate director,” says Sarah Buisman, a secondary school music teacher and member of the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan. “How can ensuring the security of my retirement fund on a livable planet be aligned with the financial interests of Canada’s third largest fossil gas producer? I honestly don’t know. It’s like having a cigarette company executive sit on the board of public health and then expecting me to believe this has no impact on anti-smoking campaigns.” This entanglement helps explain why Canadian pension funds lag behind many of their international peers in putting in place credible climate policies that include the exclusion of fossil fuels from investment portfolios. Canadian pension funds aren’t just shareholders in fossil fuel companies, they are significant owners of fossil fuel companies and infrastructure around the world.

Authentic Conversations Needed On Wellness

The Ontario Association of Social Workers (OASW) is encouraging workplace leaders to start real, authentic conversations with their colleagues in order to promote a culture of workplace wellness. This is a piece of advice to safeguard mental health in the workplace, it says. "There is a significant, ongoing mental health and addictions crisis in Canada," says Dr. Deepy Sur, OASW chief executive officer. "And it's important to know that the challenges people are facing have not been resolved just because we're entering a new phase of the pandemic. As people return to the office, we're going to need to be mindful of this context and adopt new practices for the long-term." Its top tips to promote wellness in the workplace include providing mental health awareness training, leading with empathy, extending more trust, increase mental health coverage in workplace benefit plans. It says the average value of workplace benefits for those fortunate enough to have them is $750 per year, an amount that is used up in just a handful of visits with a therapist. It is calling on employers to introduce stand-alone mental health coverage in their group plans worth a minimum of $1,500 per employee.

For details on these stories, visit www.bpmmagazine.com

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