06.12.2023
We launched our sustainability strategy, with the aim of leading by example on sustainability and catalysing the growth of a more sustainable pensions industry.
The commitments and priority areas outlined in our sustainability strategy support several of the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The SDGs are seventeen interlinked objectives that provide UN Member States with a blueprint for sustainable development.
Amina Mimi, our Sustainability Analyst, shares how our sustainability strategy supports the ambitions of seven SDGs and how we’re taking meaningful action in these areas.
Quality training and learning opportunities
We recognise that quality education, SDG 4, is critical for sustainable development as it equips people with necessary knowledge and skills to improve their lives and give back to their communities. We offer our employees a variety of training opportunities including development programmes, apprenticeships, reverse mentoring and coaching sessions.
Our charity partner, Lives Not Knives, who we support through volunteering and fundraising activities, aim to empower young people towards a more positive future. They deliver training, offer mentorship and support young people to successfully engage in education, apprenticeships, and employment.
Increasing diversity and inclusion
We provide equal employment opportunities regardless of gender, ethnicity, disability and other factors.
We’re working towards being an employer of choice for women. We offer our employees hybrid working and flexible working hours, focus on creating a menopause-friendly organisation and promote male allyship.
In 2018, we became a signatory of HM Treasury’s Women in Finance Charter, a commitment to improve gender balance across the financial services sector, at every level. Almost half of our board and executive committee are women and we’re continuing to focus on developing women in our talent pipeline.
We’re also committed to being an employer of choice for people with disabilities and as a Disability Confident Leader, we’re attracting a more diverse candidate pool for our vacancies.
Our diversity pay gap report goes beyond the statutory requirements for gender pay gap reporting and reports on our ethnicity and disability and long-term health condition pay gaps. We monitor our pay gaps to make sure our approach to pay supports and reflects our commitment to make the PPF an inclusive place to work.
We encourage our employees to join employee-led action groups to discuss challenges, gain peer support and drive initiatives for more inclusivity.
These actions help us support SDG 5, achieving gender equality, and SDG 10, reducing inequality.
Providing apprenticeship opportunities
We’re dedicated to offering a wide variety of apprenticeships that are open to people from a range of backgrounds. Our apprenticeships are challenging and meaningful roles, that have plenty of opportunity for development and hands-on training. We also work with Investment 20/20 to support bringing young professionals from underrepresented backgrounds into the investment industry.
This helps us to support SDG 8 which relates to providing decent employment opportunities for all.
Supporting infrastructure and innovation by investing sustainably
We support SDG 9, building resilient infrastructure, promoting inclusive and sustainable industrialisation and fostering innovation, through our investments within the infrastructure asset class.
We invest to make sure we can pay our current and future members’ for as long as we need to. We stimulate innovation by investing in sustainable Infrastructure and Real Estate assets, and in growth businesses through Private Equity investments such as healthcare, technology and data security.
Reducing our environmental impact through our procurement process
Our Sustainable Procurement Policy embeds our commitment to sustainable consumption and production patterns, which is the key objective of SDG 12. This policy helps our employees to consider sustainability throughout our procurement and contract management practices. We consider the sustainability of the goods and services that we buy to reduce our environmental impact and stimulate social value.
We proactively work and report on reducing our waste and recycling as much as possible, as sought through the Greening Government Commitments.
Responsible investing and minimising operational emissions
We support SDG 13, combating climate change and its impacts, through our Responsible Investment (RI) practices. During our last reporting year, 36% of our investment-based engagement issues and objectives were linked to SDG 13.
RI sits at the heart of how we manage our investment portfolio and we set ourselves high standards on climate change. We integrate the consideration of climate-related risks and opportunities in our investment process and report this through our Climate Change report.
We actively monitor our financed emissions and regularly engage with our managers to align them with our RI approach. Our engagement with companies encourages them to act responsibly and reduce any negative impact on the environment and society. Our Responsible Investment report, highlights how our key stewardship and governance activities contribute towards positive financial, societal and environmental outcomes.
We’re also committed to minimising our own environmental impacts by continuously working to reduce our operational emissions. As part of this, our offices have used electricity sourced from 100% renewable electricity tariffs since 2019.
We aim to hold further sessions for our employees on sustainability, to increase their awareness regarding climate change and our sustainability goals.
Find out more about our sustainability strategy and our sustainability ambitions and goals.
