Leading actors have written to the Chancellor calling for her to unlock green investment as part of the widespread pension reforms, announced in last night’s Mansion House speech.
A letter has been sent to Rachel Reeves signed by a members of the performing arts trade union Equity. Signatories include Mark Rylance, Olivia Colman, Benedict Cumberbatch, Stephen Fry, Jodie Whittaker and Paapa Essiedu.
This call comes as Equity is moving its £130m pension scheme into a sustainable fund that has extensive fossil fuel exclusions and is aligned with the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals.
The letter calls for Reeves to make the “smart, strategic reforms” that could unlock £1.2 trillion from the pension sector for growing clean energy and infrastructure in the UK.
They say the Government can do this by reforming pension rules and pledging more public finance to generate green growth. It argues this would lower bills and pollution levels, while creating good jobs and a healthy economy.
This letter is backed by the campaign group Make My Money Matter, a non-profit organisation co-founded by filmmaker Richard Curtis.
The letter encourages the Labour government to follow through on a key manifesto pledge: requiring financial institutions to adopt science-based plans for limiting global overheating. The letter specifics that this means pension funds, banks and insurers should no longer do business with companies expanding fossil fuels.
The letter also asks the Government to update fiduciary duty law, so that acting in savers’ ‘best interests’ means taking the impacts of climate change and damage to nature into account.
Equity general secretary Paul W Fleming says: “Equity’s members have power because they act together as a collective. The climate crisis is a problem built by capitalism, and capitalism alone won’t fix it. That’s why we need unions like Equity doing all they can to push for change leveraging our members’ pension investments against fossil fuel extraction. We can push the bosses who made this crisis to play their part in the Green Industrial Revolution we need.”
Tony Burdon, CEO of Make My Money Matter says: “Like most savers around the country, Equity members want their pensions to build a better world. This is a positive step to making that a reality. By exploring and developing new reserves, fossil fuel companies undermine our efforts to tackle the climate and nature emergency. If these companies are not part of the solution, they are not fit to be invested in.”
Mark Rylance, Equity member and actor, says: “Divesting from businesses and practices which are not harmonious with life on Earth is, I believe, an essential step for all of us to consider. Pensions are a powerful driver in society. I do not want this time of enormous challenge for all life on our planet to become a story of force, dictatorship, fear and war. Let us change the story by changing ourselves as a union of artists and choosing life over profit.”
