The UK Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has launched a new taskforce to help pension schemes understand and account for social-related investment risks. It will support trustees in managing challenges around identifying reliable and accurate data and metrics. The launch of the taskforce follows a Call for Evidence for pension schemes last year, which aimed to understand how trustees were accounting for social factors in their investment and stewardship activities. Minister for Pensions Guy Opperman said: “I’m proud of the progress we have made in bringing environmental and climate issues up the pensions agenda, but climate change should not be trustees’ sole consideration. Financially material social factors also pose risks and provide opportunities to schemes’ investments, and our taskforce will help ensure that focus on social factors continues to grow among pension schemes and throughout the investment chain.”
