A UK pension fund has announced that it will back clean energy shareholder proposals, filed by the Comptroller of the City of New York, at the upcoming annual general meetings (AGMs) of three US banks.
The £3.3bn Church of England Pensions Board will vote in favour of proposals at the meetings of Bank of America, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley.
All three proposals put forward by Comptroller Brad Lander, who is the custodian of New York City public pension funds’ assets, call on the three banks to disclose their annual clean energy financing ratio.
This is a metric showing the bank’s total financing through equity and debt underwriting as well as project finance in low-carbon energy supply, as a proportion of that in fossil fuel energy supply.
“Banks are key to the transition to net zero – and we are concerned they’re simply not transitioning away from fossil fuel financing quickly enough. Despite all the risks inherent in a disorderly transition to net zero, fossil fuel lending from these three banks remains among the highest in the banking sector,” said Laura Hillis, director of climate and environment at the Church of England Pensions Board.
The backing of these shareholder proposals comes as the Church of England Pensions Board has recently added twelve global banks to its climate change focus company list. It is now engaging with them on a range of topics including their role in addressing climate change and the energy transition.
The Church of England’s actions also come as asset owners in general have started to intensify their engagement with banks due to their role in financing oil, gas and coal supermajors.
Recently, asset owner stewardship with large banks has started to prove successful, with UK bank Barclays committing to scale back on fossil fuel financing in February.
This was after Barclays came under fire from investors for being one of the largest lenders to the European fossil fuel industry between 2016 and 2022.
