Last week, some pension fund CIOs, trustees and managers said "No more!" to that tranquilizing drug of gradualism #climate #change #now

"We have come to this hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of now. This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism."  

Martin Luther King I Have A Dream speech 28 August 1963 

When MLK pitted "the fierce urgency of now" against "the tranquilizing drug of gradualism", he touched on the heart of the problem with the human condition. Often, even when we realise a situation is urgent, we want to deal with it slowly, gradually. All in good time. No need to jump the gun.

When it comes to climate change, two categories into which our excuses classically fall are ma?ana and Messiah. The ma?ana excuse kicks the can down the road because "I'm pretty sure it will work itself out in due course". The Messiah excuse just assumes someone else (usually the Government) will come along and fix the problem. Me? I can just watch and wait.

Both ma?ana and Messiah excuses are brand names for that tranquilizing drug of gradualism. Unlike the climate-change deniers, we totally get it; it’s just that we don’t want to get overly radical. 

But look what happens when one person decides that the fierce urgency of now wins out over slowly, gradually. On 20 August 2018, Greta Thunberg, aged 15, was so outraged that "no one was doing anything about the climate", she stopped going to school and sat on the pavement outside the Swedish Parliament next to a sign she made.

Very quickly, word of her mission spread and in short order, school children around the world began to march and go on "school strike", all on a simple message: 

We’re not prepared to see our planet die because the people in charge, the powerful ones, don’t have the will or desire to change. 

Last week at our mallowstreet Summit, we tested the pensions industry's assessment of the climate change crisis, asking a simple question: "Are we running out of time?". Using voting pads, eighty nine percent of the delegates (pension funds and asset managers) answered "Yes".

OK, so we weren’t asking the entire pensions industry by any means, but in attendance we had pension fund delegates responsible for over ￡200 billion, who included some of the most influential CIOs, Chairs and Trustees in the industry. You might reasonably take the group as a proxy for the wider institutional pensions ecosystem. 

After the vote, I stated what seemed to be the blindingly obvious:

"If 89% of us believe that on its current trajectory, our planet faces catastrophic, irretrievable climate change, it should follow that the fierce urgency of now wins out over the gradual approach." 

What followed was a long, open and passionate discussion about whether we as an industry could do more and, if so, what?

Two themes quickly emerged: 

1.  Time is running out and we are a very powerful industry. When we speak with one voice, the world’s corporations listen. We should speak with that single voice. 
2. Although the industry is already taking steps to address the climate issue, pension funds could, and should, do a lot more. For example, insist that asset managers properly measure and report on their carbon impact. Now.

I should say that this outcome wasn’t planned or anticipated. On Day 2 of the Summits, we normally run a 45 minute session entitled “Making Sense of it All” during which we have a free-flowing discussion about three hot topics of the day. This time, we had intended to tackle Climate, Decision Making, and Culture in the Workplace each for 15 minutes. The decision-making topic was going to be a natural sequitur to a fabulous opening talk by the behavioural psychologist Greg B Davies.

But, as we got into that first discussion on Climate, there was such a strong sense of the fierce urgency of now, I just allowed it to run. One industry heavyweight, Paul Trickett, (chair of trustees at Santander and Railpen and a trustee on the Mineworkers’ Pension Scheme) told a hushed room:

“I have been growing increasingly uncomfortable in the last 24 hours and it is clear to me that I have personally not been as engaged on this topic as I should have been”.

Others said they completely agreed. As Mark Tennant, chairman of the ￡8bn Centrica Common Investment Fund, put it:

"The problem is, we talk about climate a great deal, but we don't actually do anything."

Everyone had something to add and then, suddenly, the 45 minutes was up.  

I was, to tell the truth, astonished. Over the years, we have run many of these sessions, but this was the first time I have felt this level of collective intent and air of expectancy. Not that all were agreed on the next steps; not that every asset manager was thrilled with the proposal that going forward, they would have to map their investments against a climate impact strategy; and not that everyone appreciated the jolt of lightning we’d all just experienced.

But we could all feel and see that something had changed. We’d had, for want of a better description, a Greta Thunberg moment.

The catalyst for all this, was an impassioned talk by Lewis Pugh on Day 1 of the Summit. Lewis is the ultra-endurance swimmer who against all odds swam one full kilometre in sub-zero waters at the North Pole to highlight the terrifying pace at which the icecaps are melting. That's never been done before (for the good reason that the water temperature is minus 1.7 degs) and was near-insane on Lewis's part. He almost froze to death.

But he did it to drive home his message that Planet Earth needs to wake up and take urgent action: 

"Everyone looked at Extinction Rebellion parking a massive pink yacht in the middle of Oxford Street and dismissed them as a bunch of crazy hippies. But, once you realize the planet is on the brink of climate catastrophe, then Extinction Rebellion are actually the rational ones. Doing nothing is what's mad. The world is sleepwalking into disaster." 

And then he threw down the gauntlet to us: 

“Ladies and Gentlemen, if you accept all this, as trustees and managers please ask yourselves, going forward, one simple question: Will this investment we are about to make be harmful or beneficial for the climate?”  

Next, in a talk on Responsible Investing, Robert Gardner would also speak about the urgency of action on climate, and ending with a powerful clip of Greta Thunberg. 

Here she is at TEDx:

As the day wore on, all the talk was of climate change, timescale, and what role each of us could play.

After the last plenary session on Day 2, Stu Breyer, David Scholtz, Bryan Verster (Team mallowstreet) and I sat in the empty room and looked at each other.

Later, over dinner, we canvassed more opinions from the delegates. Eventually, between courses, I asked whether asset owners (pension funds) would be prepared to sign a charter stating that: “In future, whenever an investment is proposed, I will ask what impact it will have on climate”? 

Several pension funds spoke up and argued that that didn’t go anywhere near far enough. There had to be consequences, they said, for investment managers who failed to engage and address their investments’ carbon footprint. Disinvestment, for example. Others said that was all very well, but there would have to be a common consensus on a carbon benchmark. And one asset manager said

“Time’s up. We have to be held to account on this issue, and do better”. 

Overnight, we worked with Nick Spencer, Sustainable Investment Advisor at Gordian Advice and drafted a charter we felt the pension fund delegates would be prepared to sign. On Wednesday morning we put it up on the main screen in the first plenary session:

"This Charter is signed in our personal capacity and is not a reflection of the views or position of any Pension Fund.

We, the undersigned, agree with the UK government that there is a climate emergency. We also know that current actions and responses are insufficient to avoid catastrophic damage to our planet. This climate emergency will have a material financial impact on every Pension Fund and all our futures. 

As Chairs, Investment Committee members, Pension Managers and Trustees, we pledge to recommend to our boards and investment committees: 

1. To ask, “What is the impact on the climate?” for each and every investment that is proposed.
2. To demand that the carbon impact of every investment is measured and reported on by our investment managers. We will work actively and collaboratively to develop complete carbon measurement standards. 
3. To insist that each of our investment managers actively engage with corporate boards underlying our investments, so that every company develops and discloses both a complete measure of their carbon impact and a clear business plan to transition to a low carbon future. 
4. To review, and ultimately recommend the termination of, any investment manager that fails to support and actively engage in stewarding the transition to a low carbon future." 

Several of the delegates agreed to sign it immediately. Others said they wanted time to talk it over with their fellow pension fund trustees.

No doubt, not everyone will feel able to sign it, but you don't need everyone. It starts with one, then two, and then, in the words of Clay Shirky: Here Comes Everybody.

There is a poignancy to this moment. It turns out we (Planet Earth) had a chance to halt climate change in the '70s and '80s. But we bottled it and now, just three decades later, we are teetering on the brink. In an article for the New York Times, Losing Earth. The Decade We Almost Stopped Climate Change, Nathaniel Rich explains how our scientists, politicians, policy makers and other powerful folk knew years ago that all this would come to pass but instead of doing what was needed, they reached for the tranquilizers. 

Here’s a quote towards the end of Rich's piece: 

"Like most human questions, the carbon-dioxide question will come down to fear. At some point, the fears of young people will overwhelm the fears of the old. Sometime after that, the young will amass enough power to act. It will be too late to avoid some catastrophes, but perhaps not others. Humankind is nothing if not optimistic, even to the point of blindness. We are also an adaptable species. That will help. 

The distant perils of climate change are no longer very distant, however. Many have already begun to occur. We are capable of good works, altruism and wisdom, and a growing number of people have devoted their lives to helping civilization avoid the worst. We have a solution in hand: carbon taxes, increased investment in renewable and nuclear energy and decarbonization technology. As Jim Hansen told me, “From a technology and economics standpoint, it is still readily possible to stay under two degrees Celsius.” We can trust the technology and the economics. It’s harder to trust human nature. Keeping the planet to two degrees of warming, let alone 1.5 degrees, would require transformative action. It will take more than good works and voluntary commitments; it will take a revolution. But in order to become a revolutionary, you need first to suffer." 

Thirty years ago, we had an hour until midnight. Now, we have barely five minutes. Time is nearly up. Greta Thunberg, Lewis Pugh and other ordinary citizens are throwing all they've got at this. It's up to us to join them. No more ma?ana; no more messiah. It's our time.

The first Signatories to the Charter. Just click here if you would like to sign it. In doing so, you're not speaking on behalf of your fellow trustees; only yourself and what you intend to do:

1. Paul Trickett - Chair of Santander; Chair of Railpen Investments; Trustee of Mineworkers' Pension Scheme
2. Mark Tennant - Chair of Centrica Common Investment Fund
3. Nigel Stapleton - Chair of National Grid UK Pension Scheme (NGUKPS)
4. David Adkins - Lloyds Bank Pension Schemes No1 & No2; HBOS Final Salary Scheme
5. Ross Reason - Stanhope Pension Fund
6. Karen Jones - AVIVA Staff Pension Scheme; Mineworkers' Pension Scheme
7. Rosie Lacey - Group Pensions Manager at De La Rue
8. Andrew Barker - Ericsson Employee Benefits Scheme and Stanhope Pension Trust
9. John Jones - Pension Board Chair on LGPS Schemes
10. Andrew Barker - The Telent Pension Office G.E.C. 1972 Plan