Our County run Leicestershire Local Government Pension Scheme has at least £156 million invested in oil and gas companies including Shell, BP and Exxon. Investing in fossil fuel producing companies is bad for the planet as it supports fossil fuel production, but it’s also financially risky for the pension fund and it’s members. Please sign and share our petition here.
So what are the arguments for and against divestment? See our summary of the main questions and our most recent speech to the pension committee.
On 22/2/23 Hinckley and Bosworth Borough Council passed a divestment motion calling on the pension fund to stop investing in fossil fuel production. On 6/7/23 Leicester City Council passed a motion unanimously calling on the pension fund to divest. On 4/9/23 Charnwood Borough passed a divestment motion (see it here) and Oadby and Wigston Borough Council unanimously passed this motion on 26/9/23. On 14/11/23 NWLeicestershire District Council unanimously passed a divest motion seconded by the Conservative leader of the Council. Harborough District Council passed this divest motion on 18/12/23. We hope to see similar motions pass in the last two district and borough councils in the next 2 months.
We held a webinar in July for local councillors to talk about why these fossil fuel investments are bad for the pension scheme, bad for our futures and urgently need ending. Speakers included world expert Mark Campanale from Carbon Tracker (an independent financial think tank that carries out in-depth analysis on the impact of the energy transition on capital markets and the potential investment in high-cost, carbon-intensive fossil fuels) and economist Dr Jeevun Sandher (head of Economics at the New Economics Foundation. You can watch the webinar here and see Mark Campanale’s slides here. We were delighted to have 18 councillors join us from 8 Leicestershire and Rutland councils and the Conservative, Green, Liberal Democrat Labour and Independent Groups. You can see the questions we want councils and councillors to ask the pension committee here.
Our #LeicsDivest working group aims to convince the Leicestershire Local Government Pension Scheme (run on behalf of all our local councils by the County Council) to stop investing an estimated £154million into fossil fuel producing companies and instead invest in local joint solutions to climate change and fuel poverty such as renewable energy and 
home insulation. 
You can read a 2 page summary of our basic arguments here, this video talk outlines our campaign and the issues around fossil fuel investment and divestment. Or you can watch the 5min speech we gave to the pension committee on 18/11/22 here. 
Please sign and share our petition here.
The Pension Scheme voted in it’s Net Zero Climate Strategy consultation in March this year. This strategy is not fit for purpose and desperately needs improving. 
For more information about our concerns about this strategy:
~ Our 14 minute explainer video about the CA100+ measures the fund plan to use and how they need to be improved to avoid greenwashing. There is 
also a briefing sheet on these measures here.
~You can see our LeicsDivest response to the consultation here.
Thankyou to the over a hundred people from across the County (many of you pension members) who came to our Divest from Crisis demo on the 24/3/23 (even though it was wet and windy). It even got press coverage
- Good write up in Leicester Mercury about the pension scheme’s dodgy Net Zero Climate Strategy, 9/2/23.
Futher down this page: Some of the many reasons to stop investing in fossil fuels companies, and further info including reports and research.
What you can do:
- Sign and share our online petition asking the Pension Fund to stop investing in fossil fuel companies and invest instead in solutions to the climate, energy and cost of living crises. You don’t need to be in the pension scheme fund to sign – our council taxes pay employers contributions to the fund and the wages of pension scheme members. You can find a printable PDF version of the petition here.
- Write to your councillors asking them to support our campaign and meet with us. Tell us you’re writing and we’ll send you info to help.
Write to the pension committee if you are in the pension fund asking them to stop investing your money in fossil fuel companies and to invest in local solutions to climate change and fuel poverty instead.
- Help us to run a short online meeting about this campaign for a group you are in, your union branch or your work colleagues. Email us at leicsdivest[@]gmail.com.
- Join our working group’s WhatsApp group. We would love your active support on this campaign, for example gathering petition signatures, doing social media, researching, writing letters, and getting our heads around the complexities of pensions and fossil fuel investment – so please get in touch via leicsdivest[@]gmail.com if you are interested.
- We are asking groups (community, religious, educational, environmental, union branches etc) to sign a statement to the pension committee (and ideally send it with a covering letter). If you are part of a group in Leicester, Leicestershire or Rutland who would be willing to sign this you can find it here.
So why do we want our Local Government Pension Scheme to publically stop investing in fossil fuels?
Reason 1. Public pension funds (run by publicly elected councils and funded with taxes) provide social licence. In other words, by investing in a company government pension funds send a message to governments and the financial world that the public support the actions of that company. By publicly withdrawing this support from fossil fuel companies they tell governments to put in place and push for strong climate legislation at an international and national level. And as this Figueres quote shows – this is effective.
Reason 2. Fossil fuel investments are temporarily profitable right now, but they are also deeply risky. As the world shifts away from fossil fuel dependancy towards Net Zero and renewable energy, less of their oil, coal and gas will be used. In other words their products will become obsolite in the way that typewriters did. The result will be that fossil fuel company shares are likely to end up unprofitable and unsellable in the near future as they become stranded. Already low carbon investment funds tend to out-perform conventional funds which include fossil fuels. The shift to fossil fuel investments becoming stranded is happening due to two things:
- As governments start to put in place legislation (such as carbon taxes) to push the world to Net Zero, fossil fuels become more expensive to produce and buy.
- Also as renewable energy becomes cheaper to produce and buy, companies and consumers will switch to renewable energy to save money – the current energy crisis is speeding up this transition. Already renewables are 7 times cheaper than fossil fuels. Fossil fuel production is very industry heavy and very expensive which is why the development of new fossil reserves no longer makes solid financial sense. It is also why new fossil fuel development is so dependant on funding from banks and security from insurence companies, and why engaging strongly with banks and insurence companies is worthwhile.
Reason 3. Pension funds are intended to give people future security. By investing in risky fossil fuel companies which are developing new reserves , they are making the future less safe for everybody. Other Local Government and big pension funds (including the Dutch pension fund for civil servants and teachers and the New York pension fund) are divesting from fossil fuels companies to help push the world to Net Zero faster – our fund should do the same. If the world goes above 2degreesC the consquences may mean that the financial world collapses and pensions cease to exist. Both the International Energy Authority and UN scientists are crystal clear that there is more than enough fuel in currently operational fossil reserves to enable the world to transition to Net Zero by 2050 – and that even just those fossil reserves could also push us well above 2degrees of heating if they are all used.
Reason 4. Engagement with fossil fuel companies asking them to move to Net Zero urgently is not effective. Our local government pension funds have been engaging with them on this issue for 30 years. In this time the worlds carbon emissions have massively increased. Their whole business model and infrastructure is based on the production and sale of fossil fuels and the world no longer has time to wait for them to change slowly. If we don’t reduce world carbon emissions by half by 2030, net Zero by 2050 will no longer be possible. We can’t do all the reduction after 2045 because by then we will aready have spent our entire carbon budget. This is why it matters that our pension fund has an effective Net Zero policy which helps to push the world onto a faster pathway to Net Zero!
For more information:
- You can see our response to the Pension Scheme’s Sep 2022 Draft Net Zero consultation here, and our recent 5 minute speech about it to the pension committee here.
- This clear article written in everyday English about how pension funds can use their shareholdings to help the world move towards Net Zero faster.
- Platform’s divestment report. It finds that Leicestershire’s pension scheme (which Leicester and Rutland are part of) has at least £156million currently invested in fossil fuels.
- This new academic research showing that divestment reduces fossil fuel companies carbon emissions (and that divestment outperforms engagement with regards to effectiveness). You can also watch this short explainer video about this research or this 25min webinar with the researchers.
- A 75min webinar about Securing Climate Friendly Investments from May2022, including 2 speakers who are on pension committees and Mark Campanale from Carbon Tracker.
- This excellent one and a half hour webinar from Platform: Local Government Pension Schemes, Climate Change and Building Community Wealth. It includes a presentation from the expert Mark Campanale of Carbon Tracker about why fossil fuels are a risky investment.
- This very well researched and straight forward briefing for Councillors from Divest UK: Divest briefing. It includes case studies on Shell and BP who the Leicestershire LGPS are invested in.
- We are deeply aware that while fossil fuel companies are mostly owned and funded by the Western world – for example the UK – the impacts of both fossil fuel extraction and climate change are currently experienced, by the Global South. For example, much of the money Leicestershire pension fund has invested in fossil fuels is with Shell who are destroying and polluting communities, and driving conflict and oppression in Nigeria. Watch this short 2 minute animation about how fossil fuel companies are at the root of climate injustice.
