Stockholm (NordSIP) – PensionDanmark has rejoined the UN Principles for Responsible Investment PRI. Industriens Pension also submitted its application to rejoin on July 3rd and is awaiting approval. The two Danish pension funds had left the UN PRI in 2013 together with another four Danish funds – PKA, PFA Pension, ATP and Sampension – which subsequently returned in January 2017.
According to the UN PRI, PensionDanmark signed the Principles once again on 10 July 2019. “We are looking forward to taking an active part in PRI’s actions for responsible investments,” a spokesperson for PensionDanmark confirmed to European Pensions. “This particularly regarding the efforts to measure and benchmark investors’ impact on investments that meet the vision of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the central aim of the Paris Agreement to pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5 degrees Celsius.”
“We submitted our application on 3 July this year,” a spokesperson from Industriens Pension confirmed, according to reports from IPE.
The six pension funds left the UN PRI in December 2013 over governance concerns. “We have (…) over a sustained period of time observed with concern that the governance of the PRI organisation does not live up to the basic standards we as investors would expect of the companies in which we invest,” they were reported to have commented at the time.
“The reason for the lack of transparency and democracy is that the management of the organisation in 2010-11 on its own initiative changed the organisation’s original constitution radically without involving its members at the time – including ATP – or obtaining their consent,” ATP commented on the occasion.
