The British Columbia Investment Management Corp. is aligning itself with other global pension investors by signing a new joint letter calling for long-term sustainability to become a more prevalent concern for corporations and asset managers.
The letter was co-signed in early March by three institutional investors — Japan’s Government Pension Investment Fund, the California State Teachers’ Retirement Scheme and the U.K.-based Universities Superannuation Scheme.
Along with the BCI, the letter has also been signed by the ABP, the Environment Agency Pension Fund, the Fonds de Réserve pour les Retraites, the HESTA Super Fund, Nest Corp. and the RPMI Railpen.
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“We are committed to those companies and partners that create long-term value for our clients and who integrate environmental, social and governance matters into their decision-making processes,” said Gordon Fyfe, the BCI’s chief executive officer and chief investment officer, in a press release. “They must have a clearly defined vision for sustainable growth because the [environmental, social and governance] factors that we face today will affect the returns of tomorrow.”
The letter emphasized the need to fold the potential effects of long-term considerations like climate change into investment strategies, as well as how portfolio companies operate.
“If we were to focus purely on short-term returns, we would be ignoring potentially catastrophic systemic risks to our portfolios,” it said.
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