PIC publishes its second TCFD report “Climate Action: Progress Towards Net Zero”

14 April 2023

Pension Insurance Corporation plc (‘PIC’), a specialist insurer of defined benefit pension schemes, has published its second Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD) guidelines report, “Climate Action: Progress Towards Net Zero”, which sets out the firm’s climate-related disclosures, building on our commitment to be carbon neutral across our own emissions by 2025 and across all sources of carbon emissions by 2050.

PIC continued to make strong progress during 2022, as well as establishing clear targets, in reducing our corporate impact on the environment, as well as the impact deriving from its investments. PIC follows a purposeful and low-risk investment strategy. Highlights include:

• PIC committed to decreasing investment carbon intensity by 50% by 2030 (from a 2019 baseline)
• 70% (FY 2021: 60%) of PIC’s public corporate credit portfolio, where data is available, is aligned to a trajectory of 2 degrees C, or below
• the weighted average carbon intensity of our investment portfolio is 175 tons CO2e which covers 78% of our investment portfolio by value, a 14% decrease in carbon intensity, compared with assets for which we had carbon intensity data, in 2021.

PIC’s approach to climate risk is incorporated into the Group’s Sustainability Strategy and overseen by the Board. The report contains insights into PIC’s governance and strategy of ESG areas, including oversight of climate risk and how ESG is integrated within the PIC portfolio.

Simon Abel, Chief Strategy Officer, PIC, said: “Climate change is an issue that is of real importance to us all. Reporting against TCFD, is in line with our purpose as we seek to manage climate risk ever more closely. PIC invests for the long-term in assets that also deliver social value and particularly in projects the UK desperately needs.

“For the second year running our TCFD report reinforces our ongoing transparency to our strategy, governance, risk management processes and key metrics for managing the impact of climate change on the business and our investment portfolio. We welcome the chance to present our second TCFD report and look forward to continuing to play a key role helping shape the debate about the transition to a low carbon economy as we all seek to manage this risk.”

Source: Pension Insurance Corporation