Damien Pantling introduced the report and stated that the appendices to the report were standard items that were brought to the Committee on a quarterly basis since December 2021.

The biggest change this quarter was the alignment with the updated Responsible Investment Policy. The updated policy reflected the priorities of the Fund and acted as an up-to-date position statement on its responsible investment activities. The document helped to focus LPPI’s efforts with regards to implementation investment information.

The final document was an update from LPPI on the net zero journey which was almost a year on from the initial commitment.

Damien Pantling noted that since publicly publishing the reports on responsible investment and updating members through newsletters, he had noticed an almost 50% drop off in the number of freedom of information (FOI) requests coming through the fund. The work required to respond to FOI requests had dropped off as a lot of information requested was already publicly available.

A 12-week consultation on the Task Force on Climate-Related Financial Disclosures (TCFD) was ongoing, with a likely outcome being that the LGPS would enforce mandatory disclosures by December 2024. This would be picked up on the Responsible Investment Update item in future meetings if this was the case.

Councillor Bond stated that he had viewed the TCFD document and asked for feedback from Damien Pantling on his views of the proposal. Furthermore, Councillor Bond stated that the net zero document was excellent and commented that the digital innovation in healthcare report didn’t seem as relevant.

Damien Pantling commented that the TCFD didn’t appear too dissimilar to the proposal for the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP). The proposal made sense, and the first port of call in formulating a response to the consultation would be to hear the opinions of other parties such as LPPI and Barnet Waddingham. A response would be submitted if the Pension Fund had further detail to add.

The Chairman echoed Councillor Bond’s comments and stated that overall, a huge amount of information was presented to the Committee on how investments were being managed which was very positive.

Joe Peach, Senior Analyst at LPPI, stated that the work undertaken on the evolution of the report was positive and noted the positive feedback from Committee members. The Robeco report was specific to LPPI but included a number of thought pieces on more general movements within the sector. Joe Peach noted that it was positive to hear that the number of FOI requests had reduced as a result of reports being made publicly available. LPPI made a commitment to be net zero by 2050 in October 2021, and information would be released over the coming weeks on how the organisation would make strides towards this target by 2030.

The Vice-Chairman asked what kind of process LPPI would follow when deciding whether to invest more in certain investment categories, given there appeared to be an opportunity for reasonable returns.

Richard Tomlinson, Chief Investment Officer at LPPI, stated that this would not be an area that LPPI would be looking to add to at this point in time.

Councillor Da Costa stated that he was proud of the responsible investment update and commented that the Fund was moving in the right direction with regards to climate change.

The Vice-Chairman echoed Councillor Da Costa’s comments and stated that the report was a valuable document which talked to the issues in the right way.

The Chairman stated that the increase of information in the public domain was very important and had a positive impact by reducing the number of FOI requests.

RESOLVED UNANIMOUSLY: That the Pension Fund Committee notes the report and;

i)               Acknowledges the Fund’s RI dashboard, RI report, active engagement report and achievement of associated outcomes;

ii)             Acknowledges LPPI’s recent client update on Net-Zero;

iii)            Approves and adopts the Fund’s revised RI policy for implementation, and;

iv)            Approves the publication of the appendices contained within this report on the Pension Fund website.