I switched to a green pension! As I’m on this sustainable living journey, one of the things I am really keen to clean up is where my money is held and where it is invested. Needless to say, I’m not perfect or preaching here, just sharing my findings and personal experience, plus a few useful resources that I hope will help you.
My pension journey began only a few years ago. Having always worked for independent, creative companies and start-ups, pensions weren’t really mentioned. That all changed when the government pension policy became compulsory.
Full disclosure: I’m not a financial advisor, in-fact I flunked Maths GCSE a number of times. This post is based on my personal experience and research into the area of green pensions. I will also point out that as I was a late comer to the pension party, I have two pensions, one with my full-time day job and a private pension. This post looks at my private pension choice alone.
Back story: A few years ago, was the first time I’d ever considered what it meant to have a pension. I remember the first pension meeting we had at work was when the government introduced workplace pensions and the automatic enrolment. We sat around and listened to how a portion of our monthly income would go towards a pension pot and how the government would match a certain amount, which all seemed pretty clear and sensible. When I asked where the money went, like, where was it being held or invested, things became slightly more confusing. The process of figuring out which sectors your pension was being invested in seemed pretty time consuming. After questioning where my money was being invested, I was sent a pile of reading material, which I just set aside to read at a “later date”. That date never came *quelle surprise.
There’s about £3 trillion invested in UK pensions. Lots of it funds harmful industries like fossil fuels, tobacco, and arms.
– Make My Money Matter
I let my pension contributions build up month after month funding tobacco, arms, fossil fuel companies (gross). Anyway, skip forward a few years and here I sit, slightly more switched on about managing my money, and a heck of a lot more conscious with my financial decisions. Still very much work-in-progress (I might add) but trying to make better choices for the planet every day and share my journey with you along the way.
Switching your pension plan might sound like a drag, but it’s incredible the power our money can have if we choose to use it for good, so worth a moment of your time. If you’re looking into switching to a green pension here are a few of the useful resources I have found:
Green Pension Useful Resources
- The Path- Ethical Penions & Investing: Financial advice in alignment with UN Sustainable Development Goals Specialising in ethically-led investment strategies.
- Make My Money Matter: Make My Money Matter is a people-powered campaign fighting for a world where we all know where our pension money goes, and where we can demand it’s invested to build a better future. A great place to find information and other websites about ethical and sustainable pensions and investing.
- Pension Bee: Pension Bee were founded in 2014 and did their first transfer in 2016. They have 70K invested customers, that’s customers who’ve finished transferring all their pensions to them, and 403K sign ups, that’s customers who’ve given their details but haven’t finished the process of transferring their pensions across.
After my research, I decided to go with the Pension Bee Future World Plan. So, I transferred over the money from my previous pension pot. The transfer was simply a case of filling out a short form with my name, DOB, pension plan number etc and Pension Bee did the rest. The customer service team were super helpful when I emailed them for more details. I asked how many people had joined the Future World Plan.
11% of our customer base are in either the Future World or the Fossil Fuel Free Plan. We’ve seen a steady increase in the number of customers wanting to save into a responsible plan from 2017 onwards, and we expect it to keep growing!
-Pension Bee
Now, obviously I’m no expert so you need to be sure to do your own research when it comes to managing your money. My decision to switch to the Pension Bee Future World Plan was driven by my desire to make sure that my investments will make a difference in moving us to a low-carbon economy. If you’re interested in the Pension Bee plan, you can read the full fact sheet HERE.
If you do decide to switch…
If you do decide to switch to PensionBee you can use my referral code. You’ll get a £50 (£40 + £10 tax relief) pension contribution when you combine your pensions with PensionBee.
Here’s my unique referral code: http://refer.pensionbee.com/mQhzDlD
With investments, your capital is at risk. Pensions can go down in value as well as up, so you could get back less than you invest. Side note: This is not a sponsored promotion by PensionBee, I’m just impressed by their Future World Pension and Fossil Fuel Free Pensions Plans.
I hope that you found some value in this post and that you’ll maybe take a moment to consider where your pension is being invested.
What you do with your own money is directly connected to the global outcome.
