Speaker 1: Welcome to zero. I'm Akshatrati. This week rom coms, sitcoms,
Speaker 1: and penshons. How often do you think about your pension
Speaker 1: four oh one K or whatever it's called in your
Speaker 1: part of the world. You know your retirement plan. If
Speaker 1: you're lucky enough to have one, the chances are you
Speaker 1: don't think about it very much, if at all. It's
Speaker 1: a thing that just happens. A small sum is taken
Speaker 1: out of your paycheck every month, and the savings grow
Speaker 1: into a sizable pot that you can tap into sometime
Speaker 1: in the future. The pot grows not just because of
Speaker 1: your continued contributions to it, but also because legions of
Speaker 1: pension fund managers put your money to work, often by
Speaker 1: buying shares in global companies. Add it all together and
Speaker 1: there's some fifty trillion dollars hell in pensions. That sounds great.
Speaker 1: Pensions have helped improve life in later years, But there's
Speaker 1: a catch. There always is a good chunk of that
Speaker 1: sum is invested in fossil fuel companies, helping them and
Speaker 1: their emissions grow as well.
Speaker 2: The why not moment has arrived. A lot of sustainable
Speaker 2: pensions are making equal if not more. This is a
Speaker 2: way where you could say to someone you're worried about
Speaker 2: the climate, here's a great, big thing you could do.
Speaker 1: Richard Curtis is not a name you might associate with pensions.
Speaker 1: He's best known as the screenwriter behind hit British comedies
Speaker 1: like Mister Bean, Love Actually, and Bridget jones Diary. Richard
Speaker 1: also founded an annual comedy TV show on the BBC
Speaker 1: called Comic Relief, which has raised more than one point
Speaker 1: five billion pounds to combat poverty and famine around the
Speaker 1: world over the past forty years. In twenty twenty, he
Speaker 1: turned his attention to pensions. He co founded Make My
Speaker 1: Money Matter, a campaign group dedicated to stopping pension funds
Speaker 1: and banks from investing in fossil fields. I sat down
Speaker 1: with Richard to ask him about how he went from
Speaker 1: writing for the screen to making your retirement money green,
Speaker 1: what can be done to stop greenwashing in the financial sector,
Speaker 1: and whether he'll ever write a climate rom com Now.
Speaker 1: You've written some incredibly popular films and series for Weddings
Speaker 1: and a Funeral, Love Actually, Bridge Jones, Mister Bean, Blackadder,
Speaker 1: but you're also behind one of the UK's biggest campaigns,
Speaker 1: Comic Relief.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I've been busier than I would have liked.
Speaker 1: So how did you go from being a screenwriter to campaigning?
Speaker 2: It's an interesting thing because in a way, my sort
Speaker 2: of argument about the climate crisis and trying to change
Speaker 2: the world is, you know, use the situation you're in.
Speaker 2: So I watched the Live Aid concert.
Speaker 3: It's twelve noon in London, am in Philadelphia and around
Speaker 3: the world it's time for Live Aid, sixteen hours of
Speaker 3: live music, and I d a fun and relief in Africa.
Speaker 2: That was an example of pop stars doing everything they could.
Speaker 2: And I was working in comedy at the time, and
Speaker 2: so I thought, go to the BBC, offer them a
Speaker 2: fundraising show which is going to have five hours of
Speaker 2: comedy in it. And then that has snowboard over the
Speaker 2: years and we've done lots of other things, but basically
Speaker 2: it was using the place I was, the job I did,
Speaker 2: and then trying to raise as much money as possible
Speaker 2: through it. And then you found it make my money matter.
Speaker 2: In twenty twenty, why did pensions become your area of interest? Well,
Speaker 2: you see I did. I mean I worked on the
Speaker 2: Live eight Concerts two thousand and five and Make Property
Speaker 2: History campaign, so I was very interested in the sort
Speaker 2: of a trade debt, the politics of fighting poverty rather
Speaker 2: than just the charity of it. And then the SDGs started.
Speaker 1: To in able development goals from the United Nates.
Speaker 2: That's right, and a sort of planned for the world
Speaker 2: which locks together climate, justice, development. And I kept on
Speaker 2: making films which said, we need to turn the billions
Speaker 2: into trillions. There's got to be more money going into
Speaker 2: changing the world in various different ways. And then I
Speaker 2: just started to hear some of the statistics about banks investment,
Speaker 2: but particularly pensions. The world pension part which belongs to
Speaker 2: the world, you know, yours and mine, is fifty one
Speaker 2: trillion of invested money. And if that could be invested in.
Speaker 1: The one trillion dollar dollars.
Speaker 2: And if that could be invested in things which are
Speaker 2: actually aiming to help on climate, help on equality, help
Speaker 2: on justice. What an amazing there. The trillions were so
Speaker 2: I thought, Comic Relief has raised you know, one point
Speaker 2: five billion and thirty five years, and yet this campaign,
Speaker 2: My Money Matter, has helped to move one point three
Speaker 2: trillion pounds in the course of two and a half years.
Speaker 1: Now on the website you highlight a study that says
Speaker 1: making your pension green it's twenty one times more powerful
Speaker 1: than cutting your carbon through giving up flying, going vegetarian,
Speaker 1: or switching energy providers. Why is greening your pensions so significant.
Speaker 2: Well, because it's a great big chunk of actual money,
Speaker 2: which is your money, which is being invested. Let's say
Speaker 2: your pension's got thirty thousand pounds in it. No one
Speaker 2: would dream of giving thirty thousand pounds as it were
Speaker 2: to charities or no normal person. But in fact or
Speaker 2: as we're lending it to businesses and enterprises which are
Speaker 2: producing renewable energy, affordable housing, affordable healthcare, you know, all
Speaker 2: the companies that are doing their best on supply chains
Speaker 2: and equality and working conditions, all these kinds of things.
Speaker 2: It says it were the biggest gun in our personal
Speaker 2: arsenal in terms of changing things.
Speaker 1: And you've said with comic Relief that you wanted to
Speaker 1: give people a sense that what they did mattered, that
Speaker 1: they could make a difference to issues like poverty. What
Speaker 1: lessons did you take from comic Relief that you've been
Speaker 1: able to translate to make my money matter.
Speaker 2: Well, I think comic Relief was a way of trying
Speaker 2: to communicate in a populist way when we were talking
Speaker 2: about issues. Instead of getting a news correspondent or a
Speaker 2: financial or social expert, we just got the normal comedians
Speaker 2: who are just normal human beings and don't know much
Speaker 2: to explain things and express all their passions. So we
Speaker 2: tried to do things in an entertaining and populist way
Speaker 2: and in a way make my money matter has gone
Speaker 2: the same route. We've just made a little film. In fact,
Speaker 2: it's about the way the bank system investing fossil fuel expansion.
Speaker 2: But it stars two stars and Game of Thrones.
Speaker 3: He will tell everyone that he now loves renewables. Oh,
Speaker 3: look at me and my pretty little windmills, and then
Speaker 3: he turns around and tells me that he loves me.
Speaker 2: Which is it? And they're doing a bit of acting.
Speaker 2: They're not talking economics. So I think what it is
Speaker 2: is to try and make things accessible, passionate or humorous.
Speaker 1: That particular film, which we'll link to in the show notes,
Speaker 1: has Kid Harrington and Rose Leslie in it. Are you
Speaker 1: thinking of writing a climate change rom com next?
Speaker 2: Ah?
Speaker 4: Do you know?
Speaker 2: I'm kind of asking people who are still funny to
Speaker 2: do the same. We used to have a show here
Speaker 2: called The Good Life, which was about two people who
Speaker 2: slip off the grid. I think that would make a
Speaker 2: very good climate change sitcom. I mean, I do think
Speaker 2: it's everybody's responsibility to think how they can make climate
Speaker 2: change issues as entertaining as exciting. You know, Adam McKay's
Speaker 2: doing it and don't look up, So I think it's coming.
Speaker 2: It probably won't be me who writes a bit old.
Speaker 1: Things like poverty and hunger, which you've targeted previously, are
Speaker 1: obviously bad. People understand it, and so it's easier to
Speaker 1: make them feel that they should do something about it. Pensions,
Speaker 1: on the other hand, are just this thing that are
Speaker 1: sitting in the background if you're lucky to have one.
Speaker 1: And so, what has been the biggest challenge in running
Speaker 1: this campaign versus anything you've done previously.
Speaker 2: It's either a challenge or an opportunity, Because when you're
Speaker 2: asking someone for money in a charity appeal, they've got
Speaker 2: that money. They could spend it on suites, but you're saying,
Speaker 2: why don't you spend it on supporting a project. In
Speaker 2: this case, you're saying, here's this thing which is just
Speaker 2: sitting there, which you've always had well without giving anything
Speaker 2: away you can achieve a big result. And by the way,
Speaker 2: it's absolutely key to this campaign. When I started looking
Speaker 2: into it, I was worried that it would be another
Speaker 2: example of morals versus money, value versus values, that if
Speaker 2: anyone was going to say, well, I'd like to green
Speaker 2: my pension and like sustainable pension, you know, you'd have
Speaker 2: to admit to them it didn't make less. But as
Speaker 2: it were, the why not moment has arrived. A lot
Speaker 2: of sustainable pensions are making equal if not more, and
Speaker 2: often more so that the excitement about the pensions is
Speaker 2: I'm actually telling people a new thing. You're actually instead
Speaker 2: of saying, you know, vegan, that's hard, don't take plastic models.
Speaker 2: We know that this is a way where you could
Speaker 2: say to someone you're worried about the climate, here's a great,
Speaker 2: big thing you could do.
Speaker 1: As you said, it's a big, big amount of money
Speaker 1: that could be moved in the right direction. One way
Speaker 1: in which pensions are being moved is through the so
Speaker 1: called ESG credentials, and ESG just stands for a set
Speaker 1: of investing strategies that take into consideration environmental, social and
Speaker 1: governance criteria and they argue that if these metrics are
Speaker 1: counted properly and included in decision making to invest or
Speaker 1: to not invest in a particular company, then you could
Speaker 1: use the global financial system and bend it towards solving
Speaker 1: the climate crisis or other social ills rather than exacerbating them.
Speaker 1: Do you think ESG advocates are right?
Speaker 2: Well, I think you know, it's quite interesting. I went
Speaker 2: to see Mark Carney, who was the Governor of the
Speaker 2: Bank of England when we started thinking about this, and
Speaker 2: he said, being absolutely sure the extent to which companies
Speaker 2: are doing the right thing, are abiding by these ZESG rules,
Speaker 2: he said, it's going to be a long journey that,
Speaker 2: but it is definitely in the right direction. And there's
Speaker 2: been a great acceleration in terms of companies reporting on
Speaker 2: these things, and that as it were, boards of companies
Speaker 2: saying these things are important. Our most important shareholder is,
Speaker 2: as it were, the world at large, you know, making
Speaker 2: sure that people don't dodge it, fudget, don't do token
Speaker 2: versions of it. This is all happening now quite fast.
Speaker 2: But it's definitely a good way of thinking about your
Speaker 2: business rather than only thinking about, as it were, the
Speaker 2: profits it's making without any consideration of the harm that
Speaker 2: it might be doing.
Speaker 1: The financial industry, in a way is quite conservative when
Speaker 1: it comes to making changes because once the system is working,
Speaker 1: they don't want to break it. And EESG is somehow
Speaker 1: being forced upon them. Yes, by society, by people who
Speaker 1: want to think in the long term, and yes, there
Speaker 1: are teething problems, some very real ones. So here at Bloomberg,
Speaker 1: we've looked at ESG for a long time. We have
Speaker 1: an entire set of staff that works on these issues
Speaker 1: all the time. One thing that we've looked at specifically
Speaker 1: is the underlying mechanism on which ESG investment decisions are made.
Speaker 1: They are tied to these ESG ratings, which are marketed
Speaker 1: as a way to say, if you are a high
Speaker 1: ESG rated company, you're doing good in the world. If
Speaker 1: you're a low EARG rated company, you're doing bad in
Speaker 1: the world. But the reality is quite the opposite. In fact,
Speaker 1: what these ratings typically say is that the company that
Speaker 1: has a high year SG rating is making sure that
Speaker 1: the risks that climate change brings are accounted for in
Speaker 1: their profits and how they manage those profits, rather than
Speaker 1: accounting for the good they do in the world. So
Speaker 1: how do you hold pension managers who make investment decisions
Speaker 1: to account for their decisions, to actually do good rather
Speaker 1: than simply be good.
Speaker 2: Pr Well, look, it's a very very as you're saying,
Speaker 2: it's a very very complicated issue how you evaluate these things.
Speaker 2: But the argument behind make my money matter is the
Speaker 2: public want you to do it, that it's actually an
Speaker 2: effort you have to do, and they expect you to
Speaker 2: be accountable. So as well, that's my side of the argument.
Speaker 2: I remember to talking to someone who runs a huge
Speaker 2: company and saying, what do you think about the sustainable
Speaker 2: development goals and ESG And he says, it's never going
Speaker 2: to make it onto the top of our agenda. And
Speaker 2: then three years later, as it were, after the pandemic,
Speaker 2: with climate change accelerating and everything, I met him again
Speaker 2: and he said, well, surprise, surprise, it's there. And so
Speaker 2: I think that the point about anybody acting individually is
Speaker 2: that they can actually affect the mindset of people who
Speaker 2: are working on these things to try and make them
Speaker 2: do it well, and try and make them accountable and
Speaker 2: try and make it real. But the other side of things,
Speaker 2: which you know, I would say to everyone who's listening
Speaker 2: to this, is you know where does the power lie.
Speaker 2: I didn't go into comedy in order to raise money
Speaker 2: or try and have this discussion with you, and yet
Speaker 2: I found myself in this position and people who are
Speaker 2: running businesses. You know, my dad worked for Unilever for
Speaker 2: thirty five years. He didn't think that was why he
Speaker 2: was there, but it turns out it could be what
Speaker 2: you're there. I sat next the other day to somebody
Speaker 2: who said that he was handling seven trillion in investments.
Speaker 2: Now he got there because he was brilliant at maths
Speaker 2: and could wear a tie. But he's now more important
Speaker 2: than most politicians. And we're all in this boat together.
Speaker 2: It's the climate chaos that is coming at us. And
Speaker 2: what a great thing to think. I got this job
Speaker 2: for other reasons, and now I can lead it. I
Speaker 2: can actually offer this advice. I can make sure it works.
Speaker 2: I just say to people, don't think, well, there's this
Speaker 2: bloke and he's saying what I should do. You know
Speaker 2: what he's saying is what could you do? Could you
Speaker 2: apply all your intelligence, all your skills, all your financial
Speaker 2: acumen to actually fixing things for your children's generation, rather
Speaker 2: than saying this is someone else. This has got to
Speaker 2: be a politician's job. This has got to be activist's job.
Speaker 2: It's not. It's the job of people in business to
Speaker 2: see whether or not, as it were, they've got the
Speaker 2: kutzba to actually make these changes work, and make these
Speaker 2: changes work in a way that will go on delivering
Speaker 2: profits and money to all their investors. Because you know,
Speaker 2: I've heard a lot of business people say sustainability is
Speaker 2: the greatest investment opportunity since the Industrial Revolution. There's a
Speaker 2: gold mine out there. Let's get there, rather than hanging
Speaker 2: on to the past and saying I'll put my money
Speaker 2: into coal mines.
Speaker 1: The only seven trillion dollar asset manager that I know
Speaker 1: is Larry Finks. I think you've just given it work.
Speaker 2: No, no, no, I think I might have known what
Speaker 2: he looks like. Now.
Speaker 1: The duty of those managing pension pots is to deliver returns.
Speaker 1: That's what fiduciary duty counts for us. And they often
Speaker 1: use that excuse to justify investments in all kinds of
Speaker 1: assets so that the risk is spread so that the
Speaker 1: returns are stable, and kinds of acets to include fossil fuels.
Speaker 1: So how do you counter that argument, which continues to
Speaker 1: be put forward by many pension managers.
Speaker 2: Well, I think the answer is to say that it
Speaker 2: is incredibly expensive and dangerous to solve the outcomes of crisis.
Speaker 2: I remember Paul Palman, who Rannuly was saying to me
Speaker 2: that to pay for all the SDGs would be cheaper
Speaker 2: than to deal with one crisis in one of them,
Speaker 2: you know. And we've seen that with COVID, with the
Speaker 2: incredible expense of not having proper pandemic prevention systems in place.
Speaker 2: So I think that the answer is that the risks
Speaker 2: to investment of climate change are so self evidently huge
Speaker 2: and dangerous and leading to so many things that the
Speaker 2: sensible execution of fiduciary duty is to be sustainable and
Speaker 2: to diversify and to encour marurage businesses which are actually
Speaker 2: helping the climate and making profits for the people who
Speaker 2: invest in.
Speaker 1: It's all good to call on people to put their
Speaker 1: money into green pensions, but how do you make sure
Speaker 1: those pensions are actually green? That's coming up. After the
Speaker 1: break in May, a think tank called Carbon Tracker Initiative
Speaker 1: put out a report that said one hundred and sixty
Speaker 1: funds that had themselves either a label of ESG Sustainable
Speaker 1: Climate carbon transition had about four point six billion dollars
Speaker 1: of investments in some of the world's largest fossil fuel companies.
Speaker 1: So when do you think that will stop and that
Speaker 1: these funds will actually have cleaned up their act.
Speaker 2: Well, this is an exciting and really current question, isn't it.
Speaker 2: You know, everyone is there's much more awareness of the
Speaker 2: immense profits of these companies and also much more awareness
Speaker 2: of the difference between you know, when I started thinking
Speaker 2: about this, the first questions I was aggressively asked is
Speaker 2: are you a divestment campaign? Do you not want anyone
Speaker 2: to invest in fossil fields at all? And we are
Speaker 2: not a divestment campaign. And it seems just like to
Speaker 2: a normal person like me, obvious that those enormous companies
Speaker 2: will be part of the transition to renewables and will probably,
Speaker 2: as it were, be the people who most executed so
Speaker 2: in the car industry, as it were, it needed Tesla
Speaker 2: to popularize electric cars for then all the huge companies
Speaker 2: to say, well, we're going to make our money from
Speaker 2: this as well. So I think it's a very very
Speaker 2: live issue, and the question is how fast and is
Speaker 2: it where people like you and me and the people
Speaker 2: who care about these things, accelerate sense that investment in
Speaker 2: new fossil fuel expansion is a completely morally and practically
Speaker 2: bad thing and part of a very old fashioned and
Speaker 2: uncourageous way of thinking about things. And our next target
Speaker 2: don't like to stay target. The people we want to
Speaker 2: convince next are the banks, you know, and again, the
Speaker 2: money that you've got in your bank could easily be
Speaker 2: funding fossil fuel expansion, and they've got to say no,
Speaker 2: we're not going to do it. And then you know,
Speaker 2: the financial reality for those companies will change and alter,
Speaker 2: and with any luck, they will do it brilliantly and
Speaker 2: be part of the solution instead of a massive part
Speaker 2: of the problem.
Speaker 1: One way to think about pensions is that it's a
Speaker 1: radical act. It's an act of believing that the money
Speaker 1: that you save now, decades later, right will come to
Speaker 1: you in a world that would be worth living in,
Speaker 1: that you would be able to take pleasure or sustain
Speaker 1: yourself with that income, by.
Speaker 2: The way, and that's what because when I first heard
Speaker 2: the word pensions, and you know, Dave and Journey i
Speaker 2: work with, said that's where we could focus. I remember thinking,
Speaker 2: I want to prefer high street banks because people are
Speaker 2: more aware of that. But there is an incredible sort
Speaker 2: of logical beauty to it, isn't it That you're trying
Speaker 2: to make sure that you have a decent future, and
Speaker 2: if your future happens in a world of climate chaos
Speaker 2: and mass migration, everything is not going to be great.
Speaker 2: You're actually asking pensions to do two things at the moment.
Speaker 2: One give you the money, and two give you the
Speaker 2: money in a world that is functioning better and is
Speaker 2: less hot. What we're particularly trying to say, as it were,
Speaker 2: is to young people, when you go for that first pension,
Speaker 2: make sure that it's sustainable one at the moment of
Speaker 2: first interaction, be on the right side of the argument.
Speaker 1: But there is a risk that if the ESG strategies,
Speaker 1: these marketing strategies, at least so far, don't actually end
Speaker 1: up doing what you want them to do, which is
Speaker 1: help tackle the climate crisis not exacerbated, that people would
Speaker 1: feel cynical about having done any of this and having
Speaker 1: even believed in your campaign and thought that the world
Speaker 1: will be better. But look what's happened, Nothing's changed. How
Speaker 1: are you making sure that that is not a place
Speaker 1: where we end up in?
Speaker 2: Well, we're being you know, we've got a lot of
Speaker 2: pension funds and businesses to sign up to a net
Speaker 2: zero promise, and what we aren't doing is just saying great.
Speaker 2: What we're saying is we're going to do a report
Speaker 2: at the end of this year which says how you
Speaker 2: are doing, whether or not you've fulfilled that. So you know,
Speaker 2: one of the things is to do our very best
Speaker 2: to make sure that people keep their promises.
Speaker 1: Well, you've kept on campaigning for causes for a long
Speaker 1: time now, so clearly at some level you think it's working, yeah,
Speaker 1: and it will continue to work. What gives you that
Speaker 1: kind of optimism?
Speaker 2: Wow, I mean that's a big question. Part of its
Speaker 2: experiential as it Well, you know, one of the biggest
Speaker 2: campaigns we did was the Make Poverty History campaign and
Speaker 2: the outcome of that was, you know, an increase in
Speaker 2: overseas development aid and particularly debt cancelation, which was an
Speaker 2: absolutely remarkable recalibration of the financial system. So as it were,
Speaker 2: if Live eight led to forty billion more addressing these issues,
Speaker 2: that's a good bit of evidence for me. I mean, obviously,
Speaker 2: in the world of politics, things go backwards and forwards,
Speaker 2: and my experience of life is that every time I
Speaker 2: do anything, I think as though I'm going to the
Speaker 2: top of the staircase. And then I look back five
Speaker 2: years later and I realized I went up a step.
Speaker 2: But you only get to the top of the staircase
Speaker 2: by going up a step at a time. You know,
Speaker 2: and I've seen, you know, on a small level, we
Speaker 2: used to relief do a lot of support of disability charities,
Speaker 2: and in many cases those charities whereas it were campaigning
Speaker 2: for changes in the law, and they achieved those changes
Speaker 2: in the law. So in my own lifetime, I've seen
Speaker 2: a lot of things that move from charity to government
Speaker 2: to huge increases of money, and you have to fight
Speaker 2: for those things that you believe in.
Speaker 1: But the progress metrics that you've tried to pursue, which
Speaker 1: is to reduce hunger, to reduce poverty, are now all
Speaker 1: back up on the rise. Some of this is because
Speaker 1: of COVID, but some of it is because of climate change. Yeah, hunger,
Speaker 1: World hunger on average was falling until about twenty sixteen
Speaker 1: to twenty nineteen is going back up again. This is
Speaker 1: pre pandemic. Poverty obviously has been exacerbated by the pandemic,
Speaker 1: but it's not getting easily solved, given inflation, given supply chain,
Speaker 1: given extreme weather. And so is that why now you're
Speaker 1: looking at climate as the focus area where poverty and
Speaker 1: hunger are still big problems.
Speaker 2: I mean, I think the genius of the sustainable development
Speaker 2: goals is that they are their absolute base understanding there
Speaker 2: is that all these things are linked. I thought I
Speaker 2: could get away just focusing on poverty and development. And
Speaker 2: I remember in at Live eight with the guy in
Speaker 2: shorts from green Peace left stormed out of the room
Speaker 2: because we said it's too complicated for people to get
Speaker 2: their heads around. But just take as it were, what's
Speaker 2: just the floods in Pakistan. You can see that climate
Speaker 2: change not only does damage, but does epic damage to
Speaker 2: the poorest people. And as far as the current reverses
Speaker 2: are concerned, you know, what do you do when things
Speaker 2: that you really are passionate about seem to get worse? Well,
Speaker 2: I would have thought the answer is try harder. I
Speaker 2: would have thought the answer is recruit different and new partners.
Speaker 2: That's why, you know, we're talking to the people who
Speaker 2: have power over the money in this world, and the
Speaker 2: most interesting thing in the world of the SDGs and
Speaker 2: the and is a lot of the stuff that Mia
Speaker 2: Motley is saying, the Bridgetown Agenda is actually saying, is
Speaker 2: there things that we can do at the World Bank?
Speaker 2: Are the things that you can do at the IMF?
Speaker 2: You know, just the simplest of ideas, this idea of
Speaker 2: freezing debt that went a country has some kind of
Speaker 2: climate crisis, environmental crisis that as it were, the debts
Speaker 2: are frozen till they've been able to spend that debt
Speaker 2: with payment money on trying to revive the country. So
Speaker 2: you know, you just have to be more imaginative, bring
Speaker 2: more people on your team, change more people's minds, and
Speaker 2: then meanwhile hope that science initiative, business brilliants, all of
Speaker 2: these things, as they did in COVID, come up with
Speaker 2: solutions faster than ever now.
Speaker 1: Pensions are not just fueling the climate crisis here as
Speaker 1: a UK issue, but many of the world's biggest asset
Speaker 1: managers and pension parts are based in the US. We
Speaker 1: talked about the total sum being fifty one trillion dollars
Speaker 1: in the US specifically, there is a backlash backlash on
Speaker 1: certain types of investments, so ESG investments are being opposed
Speaker 1: by Republicans. Are you worried that that kind of politicization
Speaker 1: off investments is going to spread and will harm the
Speaker 1: sort of work you're trying to promote.
Speaker 2: I mean, yes, yes, I think that that is. There
Speaker 2: is an issue of sort of drawing everything up on
Speaker 2: sort of culture wars arguments. But you've got to believe
Speaker 2: that you're right. You know, the people who are objecting
Speaker 2: to this movement in the USA, as far as I
Speaker 2: know is they are saying, is it putting our funds
Speaker 2: and our future at risk? And yet an enormous people,
Speaker 2: number of people who are very well informed financially, say no,
Speaker 2: the opposite is true. You know, you're going to end
Speaker 2: up with stranded assets, You're going to end up having
Speaker 2: to pump money into industries that no longer are powerful
Speaker 2: and effective. I'm hoping, as it were, that arguments and
Speaker 2: the truth of where the money goes and how the
Speaker 2: money expands is what will eventually win the day.
Speaker 1: Not everyone has a choice about where the pension money goes.
Speaker 1: They don't always have the option of changing providers, don't
Speaker 1: always have the ability to influence their provider to invest
Speaker 1: in the right things. So what do people do if
Speaker 1: they care about greening their pensions, but are stuck.
Speaker 2: That is a really good question, and the answer is,
Speaker 2: I think it's going to become easier. I love the
Speaker 2: idea of the heroic chief financial officer, you know, the
Speaker 2: climate sup the necessary heroes that we actually need, you know,
Speaker 2: may have briefcases. So I think that the answer is that,
Speaker 2: in particularly if you're in a company scheme and that's
Speaker 2: been the wrong way, is to talk to the company
Speaker 2: and say that you want it to change, and that
Speaker 2: there are a lot of people who want it to change,
Speaker 2: and then they may well start to provide those products.
Speaker 2: And one of the things we are finding is that
Speaker 2: pension funds are creating more and more products that you
Speaker 2: can take advantage of. And when I started talking about
Speaker 2: these issues, I went to my extremely intelligent financial advisor,
Speaker 2: and he never thought about it. You know, he hadn't.
Speaker 2: Actually there's a big educational process. But when it becomes
Speaker 2: a priority with people, you may be one of those
Speaker 2: people of whom it's impossible to change, but you may
Speaker 2: be someone who it's hard to change. And when you
Speaker 2: make that change, then it's much easier for those people
Speaker 2: who come after you.
Speaker 1: So when you know the expert who's supposed to advise
Speaker 1: the non expert does not know what they should know.
Speaker 1: You know, you're on the right part to try and
Speaker 1: build a campaign that will be effective.
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly, And actually, in fact, now my financial advisor
Speaker 2: is an expert and is on some kind of body
Speaker 2: of financial advisors who are pushing for these things.
Speaker 1: Now, for the first time, we've seen advertisers being held
Speaker 1: accountable by standards authorities here in the UK and in Europe,
Speaker 1: banning adverts that have things like carbon neutral on them
Speaker 1: if they are not able to meet the criteria to
Speaker 1: actually back those claims. Should similar types of punishments be
Speaker 1: given for green washing in the finance industry, I'm.
Speaker 2: Sure they will be. I mean, I have found it
Speaker 2: hilarious over the past few years that almost every ad
Speaker 2: that you see for a petrol company is basically about
Speaker 2: the four wind farms they've got, you know what I
Speaker 2: mean when you hear the figures of how much they're
Speaker 2: investing in one thing and not in the other. So
Speaker 2: this is exactly the point where regulation starts to bite,
Speaker 2: you know, and their reaction is either don't do that
Speaker 2: false advertising or make the changes that mean that it
Speaker 2: is no longer false advertising. Both of those things are good.
Speaker 1: The campaign's philosophy is that you get pension funds and
Speaker 1: the companies they invest in to become greener through dialogue
Speaker 1: and pressure. That is, in investors speak engagement. When do
Speaker 1: you think engagement is not working and you should divest,
Speaker 1: which is just pull your money out of these companies
Speaker 1: and these funds because you've tried talking to them and
Speaker 1: they're not doing the right thing. When is it that
Speaker 1: you cross that treashold?
Speaker 2: Well, that's very interesting, and that you know that may
Speaker 2: be partly personal taste, do you know what I mean?
Speaker 2: Someone may just say I'm not having this at all.
Speaker 2: I'm going to shift straight away. So I think that,
Speaker 2: you know, I've tended in my life to walk slightly
Speaker 2: down the middle of the road. I have quite a
Speaker 2: lot of admiration for people who are more you know,
Speaker 2: activist than I am. They make a lot of noise
Speaker 2: and sometimes they're extremely effective. So I think the answer
Speaker 2: is that divestments should be something that those people who
Speaker 2: believe in it should do, and those people who sometimes
Speaker 2: believe you know, if you had a very pure pension
Speaker 2: fund that says we are divesting all these things invest
Speaker 2: in US, then that's another way of making money. So
Speaker 2: I think it's you know, it's for small choice, and
Speaker 2: it's something that some people may feel they should as
Speaker 2: sooners some people may feel they should do later, and
Speaker 2: I hope they won't ever have to do.
Speaker 1: Is there a danger that people, if they succeed at
Speaker 1: greening their pensions think, given it so effective, it's happening
Speaker 1: in the background, it's the biggest lever you can pull.
Speaker 1: You've pulled it, so you're going to forget about it
Speaker 1: and then just live life as carbon rich as you can.
Speaker 2: I think not. You know, I've described giving money to
Speaker 2: Comic Relief in Red Nose Day as the sort of
Speaker 2: gateway drug that once you've got an investment, now you've
Speaker 2: given your five pounds to do something, the next time
Speaker 2: you're asked your opinion, you'll say, well, I'm part of that.
Speaker 2: So you know, if you do the pension and then
Speaker 2: as we are doing this year, you raise the issue
Speaker 2: of banks, you know, and is your bank doing the
Speaker 2: right thing, you'll think about banking. So I think people
Speaker 2: get a sense of their consumer power. So I think
Speaker 2: it's a journey that once you realize that you've done
Speaker 2: a powerful thing. You're much more likely to do more
Speaker 2: powerful things than to say I've just done that one
Speaker 2: thing and now I can let it be.
Speaker 1: If you were to go back to making films, Oscar Boyd,
Speaker 1: the producer of Zero, has a few ideas for you.
Speaker 2: Oh thank god.
Speaker 1: You know, instead of love, actually you could make pensions. Actually, yes,
Speaker 1: instead of notting Hill, you could make no oil spills.
Speaker 1: And the best is, instead of four weddings in a funeral,
Speaker 1: you can make your pension is your funeral.
Speaker 2: Wow, Honestly he's tough. I mean, I don't think any
Speaker 2: of those movies are going to make any money, but
Speaker 2: I'm very proud to be credited with title inspired by
Speaker 2: That could be my credit on those films.
Speaker 1: How the energy transition is financed remains an unsolved puzzle.
Speaker 1: The lack of progress often comes up annual climate summits.
Speaker 1: Pensions are a huge source of private capital that, if
Speaker 1: channeled in the right direction, could help shift significant sums
Speaker 1: of money toward vital clean energy projects. However, pension providers
Speaker 1: must be held accountable to make sure that money does
Speaker 1: what's promised. Thanks for listening to Zero, and a special
Speaker 1: thank you to everyone who filled out our survey. Each week,
Speaker 1: Bloombergreen publishes hundreds of stories about the climate crisis and
Speaker 1: its solutions, including a recent investigation into efforts to preserve
Speaker 1: Gabon's pristine forests by Natasha White.
Speaker 4: Recently, I traveled to Gabon in Central Africa with my
Speaker 4: colleague Anthony squasines investigate the country's efforts to raise money
Speaker 4: for protecting its forests. We traveled from the capital, Libreville
Speaker 4: to the southernmost province and for as far as the
Speaker 4: eye can see for three hours straight. During our flight,
Speaker 4: it was an expanse of massive, unbroken forests, the most
Speaker 4: trees I've ever seen. These trees are critical in the
Speaker 4: global fight against clim change and are also home to
Speaker 4: a wide variety of species, but in current markets they're
Speaker 4: worth more dead than they are alive. Gabon hopes that
Speaker 4: by selling carbon credits it can get the money it
Speaker 4: needs to protect its trees while generating revenue and jobs
Speaker 4: for its people. Critics say that in Gabon, forest protection
Speaker 4: is happening anyway, and credits generator from those trees wouldn't
Speaker 4: have any additional climate benefits. As we found out, these
Speaker 4: tensions are creating real challenges for the country and its
Speaker 4: business partners as they navigate the highly contentious carbon credit market.
Speaker 1: To read Natasha's article and see the amazing aerial photos
Speaker 1: of Gabon's for us, we've put a link in the
Speaker 1: show notes. If you enjoyed this week's episode, share it
Speaker 1: with a friend or someone who gets too many ads
Speaker 1: about investing. Get in touch at zero port at Bloomberg
Speaker 1: dot Net. Zero's producer is Oscar Boyd and senior producer
Speaker 1: is Christine driscoll. Our theme music is by Wonderly Special
Speaker 1: thanks this week to Alistair Marsh and Kira bindram i'm
Speaker 1: Akshatrati back next week.