Sustainable pension fund training for ACV-CSC

Back in 2020, we set the first contacts with ACV-CSC labour union, which is active in pillar-II pension funds (pensions organised by employers), about sustainable investment. This led to the development of a brochure and checklist on sustainable investing. Now, we organised a workshop on the same topic. The three-hour training focused on the basics of sustainable finance, from ESG to sustainable approaches to pension funds. At the end of the workshop, participants were able to identify quite a few “false facts” during a quick quiz – like the myth that sustainable investments would have a lower return than traditional ones.

Several conclusions can be drawn from this training. An important remark is that pension funds are forced to focus on financial returns. Even though sustainable investments can offer excellent returns, they do tend to incur extra costs.
A pension fund that wants to prioritise sustainability first needs to alter its investment policy, for example. Doing so can be a time-intensive and challenging process, involving many stakeholders. Implementing certain investment criteria – like coal thresholds or exclusions based on controversy screenings – requires company/government data and systems to detect breaches and controversy updates. This means that making a pension fund more sustainable is quite an undertaking, but worth the exercise.

ACV-CSC called the workshop “a must-have for board members in pension funds” – so if you are interested in a similar training to help make society’s investments more sustainable, reach out to info@ethibel.org.

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