Climate Action and Carbon Reduction Plan 2024 - 2027

Introduction

Climate change

International, regional, and local context

Hyper-local context: mapping our emissions

What we are doing

Appendix one

Appendix two

Worcestershire Pension Fund is worth more than £3.5 billion, at least £146.9 million of which is invested directly into fossil fuel companies. The vast majority of this amount is invested in oil, with the rest invested in coal. This investment constitutes 5.4% of the entire Worcestershire Pension Fund. This is the third highest proportion of total funds invested in fossil fuels of all 97 LGPS pension funds in the UK, behind only Great Manchester and East Riding pension funds. The total financed emissions of the Worcestershire Pension Fund, as reported by the fund themselves, was 169,673 tCO2e for the year 2022. However, Wyre Forest District Council is not the sole contributor to this fund. In total, there are 190 contributors, including Herefordshire Council, Worcestershire County Council and the five other district councils of Worcestershire. The contributions of Wyre Forest District Council constituted 2.38% of all contributions received in the three financial years April 2020 – March 2023. Therefore, proportionally speaking, Wyre Forest District Council can be said to account for 4,038.22 tCO2e of the fund’s total emissions.

At least £110 million worth of the Worcestershire Pension Fund’s investments in fossil fuels are managed by Legal and General, with a further £32.2 million managed by LGPS Central, and another £4.7 million managed by Nomura Asset Management. This £146.9 million of fossil fuel investments also includes investments in unconventional fossil fuel sources including fracking, extra heavy oil, coalbed methane, ultra-deep water, Arctic oil, and tar sands.

The above map shows the countries in which Worcestershire Pension Fund is funding fossil fuel related projects. Countries highlighted in green are the ones in which Worcestershire Pension Fund is funding current fossil fuel extraction projects. For a list of these countries, please refer to Countries highlighted in yellow are where Worcestershire Pension Fund is funding projects looking into possible fossil fuel expansion/extraction. As shown by the map, it is clear the investment activities of the Worcestershire Pension Fund are truly global.

This data was collected by UK Divest through the sending of Freedom of Information (FOI) requests to all UK LGPS pools and schemes.

List of countries in which Worcestershire Pension Fund is funding current fossil fuel extraction projects (highlighted in green): Canada, Mexico, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Chile, Argentina, Brazil, Venezuela, Guyana, Mozambique, Angola, Gabon, Republic of the Congo, Gabon, Equatorial Guinea, Nigeria, Ghana, Algeria, Libya, Tunisia, Egypt, Spain, Ireland, the UK, Netherlands, Norway, Italy, Germany, Denmark, Poland, Austria, Hungary, Romania, Russia, Kazakhstan, China, India, Pakistan, Oman, Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Israel, Iraq, Iran, Turkmenistan, Bangladesh, Myanmar, Thailand, Vietnam, Japan, Indonesia, Malaysia, Brunei, Australia, New Zealand, Qatar, Philippines, Trinidad and Tobago, and Papua New Guinea.

List of countries where Worcestershire Pension Fund is funding projects looking into possible fossil fuel expansion/extraction (highlighted in yellow): Mauritania, Côte d'Ivoire, Cameroon, Uganda, and Kenya.

Source: UK Divest, 2023