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The Welsh Assembly Member Pension Scheme has taken the decision to move nearly all their investments away from fossil fuel companies and set themselves a timeline for ditching the rest.
This follows constructive meetings with assembly members, the pension board and their financial advisors.
Bleddyn Lake, the Friends of the Earth Cymru spokesperson, said: “This is a very welcome step in the right direction and brings the AM pension scheme into line with more than 1,000 organisations worldwide who have made commitments to divest their pension and other investments from climate wrecking fossil fuel companies."
Divestment
Lake continued: “We have received a great deal of support for our campaign from thousands of people around Wales who have written to or met their AMs asking them to support our call for divestment.
“Many AMs from different political parties have supported our call publicly and we would like to thank them for their support.
“The job isn’t anywhere near done though and we reiterate our call for all public bodies in Wales to ditch their investments in these fossil fuel companies.
"It makes financial as well as moral sense and we simply do not have any more time left to prevaricate, look the other way of kick these sorts of decisions into the long grass.
Investments
“Ceredigion Council takes its own vote on divestment tomorrow and we hope they will join the AM Pension Scheme in making this a positive week in Wales in the fight against global climate chaos.”
The pension board has agreed to move 15 percent of scheme assets, around £6 million, to a sustainable return fund.
This will see the scheme’s investments in the oil and gas sector fall by around 30 percent to about 1.99 percent.
The board has adopted a policy to reduce the scheme’s investments in the oil and gas sector to zero over a five year period subject to the availability.
This Article
Brendan Montague is editor of The Ecologist. This article is based on a press release from Friends of the Earth Cymru.
