Connections between senior staff at Canada’s largest pension funds and the fossil fuel industry raise “serious questions” about their ability to make effective climate-related investment decisions, according to a report from Shift Action for Pension Wealth and Planet Health, a charity. Eighty different pension directors, trustees, executives and senior staff at ten large pension funds currently hold or previously held 124 different roles with 76 different fossil fuel companies. Seven of the ten pension funds have at least one board member who simultaneously sits on the board of a fossil fuel company. “The degree of overlap between pension managers and fossil fuel companies creates legitimate concerns about the corporate power of the fossil fuel industry entrenching itself in pension funds that have a mandate to provide reliable retirement security for millions of Canadians amidst a worsening climate crisis,” said Patrick DeRochie, Senior Manager at Shift.
