People’s Pension: putting its money where its beliefs are

The approach, initiative or process 

This submission is divided into two parts:

1. Leading an asset owner coalition on the creation of the Asset Owner Statement on Climate Stewardship (a set of asset manager expectations). 
2. The movement of £20 billion of assets under management (AUM) (developed equities) to a more aligned asset manager on climate stewardship. 

This case study focuses on People’s Pension’s leadership role in the creation of the AO statement (supported by Brunel and Scottish Widows) and on how this effort aligns with the movement of £20 billion AUM to a more aligned asset manager on climate stewardship, showcasing People’s Pension as an asset owner that puts its money where its beliefs are.

There are many facets to systemic stewardship as an externally managed asset owner. Both of the initiatives highlighted here – especially taken together as they were launched within two weeks of each other – created a strong collective market signal which has the potential to produce a sea change in asset owners taking back the power as the owners of capital that they represent, and giving more teeth to their asset manager monitoring programmes. This collective signalling is particularly noteworthy at a time when the anti-ESG movement is growing in strength, and greenhushing (where companies intentionally underreport or conceal environmental efforts and achievements) is on the rise.

Part 1: AO Statement on Climate Stewardship

People’s Pension led on the creation of the Asset Owner Statement on Climate Stewardship, a new resource for the sector, and designed to set out clear and consistent expectations for asset managers on climate stewardship

Launched in February 2025, the statement was signed by 26 investors (at launch) from the UK, Europe, Australia and the US, totalling £1.2 trillion AUM (and still growing as of June 2025).

The statement aimed to promote constructive dialogue on climate stewardship and improve efficiencies within the stewardship chain. This enables asset manager stewardship teams to fulfil their asset owner climate objectives as part of their mandates. Ultimately, the statement seeks to raise the bar on climate stewardship across the investment sector and is seeking to build upon existing good practice regarding asset manager expectations. The expectations are:

• industry/market and public policy engagement should be core to the climate stewardship proposition across asset classes. This principle in particular emphasises the importance of a systemic stewardship approach;

• where permissible, asset managers should prioritise collaborative initiatives to achieve greater impact and embed efficiencies in engagement activities;

• asset managers’ prioritisation framework for company engagement should be rooted in a robust theory of change that delivers maximum impact;

• a systematic approach to voting is imperative;

• the stewardship function needs to be appropriately resourced.

The concluding remarks of the statement highlight that “for some asset owners, poor or misaligned stewardship activity could contribute to a downgrade in asset manager ratings, a reassessment of the mandate, or the selection of asset manager/s demonstrating greater alignment with the pension scheme’s objectives”. People’s Pension triggered the latter escalation approach, which is further described in Part 2 of this submission.

Part 2: Bringing the Asset Owner Statement to life – moving £20 billion to a new manager, to achieve stewardship alignment on climate (and other ESG issues)

Considered a bold move by the industry, People’s Pension moved around £20 billion of developed market equities from State Street Global Advisors to Amundi Asset Management, an asset manager considered to be more aligned to People’s Pension’s responsible investment policy.

The shortlisted asset managers were evaluated across a wide variety of categories, with considerable weighting given to stewardship. The rationale behind the material weighting was that in an indexed strategy, stewardship is one of the main value-adds and key differentiators (this is acknowledged by the Institutional Investors Group on Climate Change in its recent index paper, Index investing for the net zero transition).

One of People’s Pension’s investment beliefs is that it has universal owner characteristics, which had implications on how it evaluated its managers during the due diligence process. A material portion of the weighting within the responsible investment assessment was given to the quality of the asset manager’s industry and policy engagement activities (including the amount of stewardship resources spent in this area versus company engagement/voting), in recognition of the need to apply a systemic stewardship lens. This approach was fully endorsed at a senior level, notably the trustees and the Chief Investment Officer. For further details on the other criteria used in the asset manager assessment, please refer to Principle 3 (table) of People’s Pension People’s Pension responsible investment policy.

Measures to ensure transparency and involve collaboration

With regards to Part 1 of this submission, collaboration has been central to the creation of the AO Statement on Climate Stewardship. Its creation stemmed from an initial asset owner and fund manager workshop led by Brunel (with support from People’s Pension and other investors) in October 2023.

During the asset owner/fund manager workshop, the key piece of feedback from the fund managers was for their clients to align their own stewardship expectations. The AO statement was prepared in direct response to this feedback.

As previously stated, at the time of the launch in February 2025, 26 asset owners representing £1.2 trillion AUM (and growing many months later) across various markets signed the statement. Garnering support from this number of investors involved an enormous number of meetings and outreach over many months.

With regards to Part 2 of this case study, People’s Pension could not have achieved this move to new managers without support from the trustees, the wider investment team, legal team and many other internal stakeholders.

PRI disclaimer:This case study aims to contribute to the debate around topical responsible investment issues. It should not be construed as advice, nor relied upon. It is written by a guest contributor. Authors write in their individual capacity – posts do not necessarily represent a PRI view. The inclusion of examples or case studies does not constitute an endorsement by PRI Association or PRI signatories.