Super funds shy on backing climate change votes

Super funds remain reluctant to back shareholder motions calling for more transparency from Australian companies on climate change risks, despite supporting similar proposals targeting companies in the US, research suggests.

Australian funds backed a motion targeting Occidental
Petroleum, but many declined to support votes against local companies.

And the research, produced by NGO Market Forces, argues that super funds are also lagging on their own standards of transparency, with many making only limited disclosures about how they voted at company meetings - and some not revealing this information at all.

Market Forces examined the proxy voting records of Australia's 50 biggest super funds to track how they voted on 53 climate change-related shareholder resolutions at company AGMs in Australia and the US.

Such resolutions, which are common in the US and have become more frequently used in Australia, often call on companies to disclose more information about how climate change may impact their operations, and the steps they are taking to respond to its risks. Company boards usually recommend shareholders vote against the resolutions.

Read the story by Ruth Williams from The Age - “Super funds shy on backing climate change votes.”

Doctors call on health super funds to pull $1.7 billion out of coal and oil companies

Hundreds of Victorian doctors and medical staff are pressuring their super funds to quit investing in coal and oil for the sake of health, as they did with tobacco five years ago.

Hundreds of medical staff in Victoria are pressuring
their super funds to divest from corporations that
are based on fossil fuels.

The group, which includes some of Australia's leading health experts, says there is overwhelming evidence that climate change is already making people sick and causing thousands of deaths.

They want the two largest health super funds, HESTA and First State, to divest from fossil fuel-based companies, arguing the nest eggs of the medical profession should not be built on industries that make people sick.

Combined, the two default health super funds have about $1.72 billion invested in these heavily fossil fuel-based companies, according to Market Forces, an environmental investment advisory group.

Read Adam Carey’s story in today’s Melbourne Age - “Doctors call on health super funds to pull $1.7 billion out of coal and oil companies.”