Ten Strategies for Pension Funds to Better Serve Their Beneficiaries

Abstract

On December 14, 2011, the Wall Street Journal carried an article titled “A Manifesto for Sustainable Capitalism” by former US Vice President Al Gore and his partner at Generation Investment Management, David Blood. The article signaled the launch of their white paper on sustainable capitalism, which set out five broad recommendations. On June 4, 2013, these five recommendations were debated in a workshop attended by 100 senior executives representing 40 pension organizations from 12 countries. The next day, the attendees were asked to turn the five recommendations into specific action steps they would be prepared to act on. They were asked to think about these action steps both in the micro context of their own organization and in the macro context of collective action. This article describes each of the resulting 10 action steps and reflects on their potential to move the sustainable capitalism yardsticks in the right direction.

Keywords: Earnings Guidance, Executive Compensation, Integrated Reporting, Long-Horizon Investing, Pension Fund, Stranded Assets, Sustainable Capitalism