The surprising impact of eco-investing
Every day there are new ways for us to “go green”. We can take public transport…. get an electric car… change our electricity or gas supplier for one that uses renewable energy…. We can staycation and reduce our airmiles… buy local produce…. or start eating a veggie or even a vegan diet.
All these lifestyle adjustments can help to reduce our personal carbon footprint, to varying degrees.
In fact, for many of us, the choices we can make about which companies we give our business to, and the type of causes we support (or don’t!) are extremely important to us.
Undoing all your good work
What a shame then that we could be unwittingly investing our money in a way that is totally at odds with how we live our day-to-day life.
Most of us have some sort of workplace pension – and the moment we have one of these, we are an investor. However, we often don’t take the next step to actually investigate where and how our money is being invested.
This is something that is completely within our control as investors, and in fact making a change could have a bigger impact than you might think!
Small change, big impact
Compared to sacrificing your long-haul holidays, swearing off meat for good, or getting rid of your petrol car, swapping your pension investments is a pretty small, insignificant change that is likely to take you a matter of minutes.
Recent research* also suggests that making this change to an average pension pot of £30k is a “staggering” 21 times more effective at cutting carbon footprints than stopping flying, becoming a vegetarian, and moving to a renewable energy provider combined!**
Put another way, making a change to a sustainable pension investment option could save around 19 tonnes of carbon annually – not bad considering the average UK citizen’s total footprint is around 7 tonnes a year.
And if you’re fortunate enough to have built up an even bigger pension pot than this, the carbon savings are even larger!
How we go green at SpringGen
At SpringGen we invest our money sustainably as a default – we work with the new generation of investors and we want to help preserve our planet for this generation and our future families.
The approach we take to green investing is based around measuring the greenhouse gas emissions of the companies we invest in.
A typical SpringGen portfolio emits nearly 73%*** less carbon dioxide than a standard global index tracker fund – a stat we are very proud of!
What can you do now
If you have an active workplace pension, log in or call up and ask the company how your pot is invested. Ask them what the other investment options are, and how you can change it up.
If you’re interested in starting a new eco-investment or pension, or reviewing an old one, SpringGen is always here to help!
Sources:
*https://makemymoneymatter.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/Summary-of-21x-research.pdf
**https://www.pensionsage.com/pa/Green-pension-21x-more-effective-than-common-climate-efforts-combined.php
*** emea-sustainability-core-equity-funds-overview-client-ready
