The Irish Association of Pension Funds (IAPF) has launched a responsible investment guide for trustees.

The new guide, which is available on the association’s website, was launched by IAPF CEO, Jerry Moriarty, at the IAPF Investment Conference 2024 in Dublin today, 13 March. He encouraged trustees to use the guide as a basis for discussion and debate at trustee meetings.

Moriarty said the IAPF has launched the guide with the aim of helping trustees with a “confusing area”.

“The intention is to help trustees navigate this area and how they might consider the various issues involved. It includes lots of chapters and guidance, which we hope you will find useful,” Moriarty said.

“As we all know the whole theme of responsible investment has been very dominant in the investment world in recent years. Quite often it can be confusing as we use terms like responsible investment, sustainable investment, ESG, impact investment, taxonomies, net zero, carbon neutral. It has also become quite political and controversial as people debate the role of asset owners and the balance between the need to generate returns and the needs of greater society.

“What is clear though is that this is an issue that trustees need to consider. There are many aspects to this including regulation, risk management, member engagement. At a minimum I don’t think anyone could argue that schemes shouldn’t consider the risk management aspect. For example, schemes need to understand the impact of climate change on the value of their investments, particularly over the long term. Schemes can then decide for themselves if they can, or should, have a role in impacting climate change and how they go about doing that.”

In addition, the guide was also welcomed by the Pensions Regulator, Brendan Kennedy, who said it would be “very useful”.

“We recognise that ESG issues are a significant challenge for the pensions sector and initiatives like this have the potential to make trustees lives that bit easier,” Kennedy said.

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