People’s Pension publishes first Responsible Investment Report

The UK’s largest commercial master trust pension scheme¹, People’s Pension², has today published its first ever Responsible Investment (RI) Report³, which reinforces its commitment to RI and outlines its achievements in the past year.

The report comes nearly 10 months after People’s Pension confirmed its appointment of new asset managers, Amundi and Invesco⁴. The report offers an in-depth look at the Scheme’s manager selection process, highlighting how bespoke, best-in-class Investment Management Agreements (IMAs) were designed to strengthen alignment with the Scheme’s RI policy.

It also provides detailed insights into voting and engagement practices undertaken by the Scheme’s fund managers on its behalf, including an assessment of alignment on People’s Pension’s RI policy and thematic priorities. This further underscores the importance of robust asset manager monitoring to ensure adherence to People’s Pension’s RI priorities: climate change, nature and human rights.

Reflecting its universal owner ethos⁵, the report outlines how the Scheme used its assets to amplify influence through regulatory and industry responses. This includes the FRC’s UK Stewardship Code consultation, the FCA’s consultation on changes to the pension’s regulatory framework, and the Asset Owner Statement on Climate Stewardship.

This report also outlines how People’s Pension has built a solid cultural foundation – including, but not limited to, its mission, values, and beliefs – which serves as an important underpin to its RI approach.

Mark Condron, Chair of The People’s Pension Trustee, said: “Earlier this year, we transitioned to asset managers who are more aligned to our Responsible Investment Policy. We also took a leadership position in raising industry standards on climate stewardship. 

“Our team’s outstanding work has been recognised with industry-leading awards from the Principles for Responsible Investment (PRI) and Pensions for Purpose – showcasing the impact and innovation behind our approach. These achievements highlight what responsible investment leadership looks like: setting high standards, influencing corporate behaviour, and delivering sustainable outcomes.”

Cassandra Traeger, Stewardship Manager at People’s Partnership, which provides People’s Pension to seven million savers, said: “We’ve made great progress in aligning more closely with our Responsible Investment Policy through the appointment of our new asset managers, Amundi and Invesco.

“As a universal asset owner, we recognise that our greatest impact is not on a company-by-company basis, but by addressing systemic issues that affect entire sectors and economies. We believe this shift will deliver greater impact for our members than any individual company engagement or proxy vote could achieve on its own. This approach underpins our commitment to improving sustainability across markets.”

In line with its RI Policy, the Scheme’s company expectations and net zero voting guidelines described above were incorporated into the asset manager selection process outlined in Section 6.

The publication of the RI Report follows the release of People’s Pension’s latest TCFD report⁶ and updated RI Policy⁷ and comes less than a fortnight after the announcement of the appointment of Robeco⁸ as an asset manager.

ENDS