You can change the world

I hadn’t heard of the campaign make my money matter, until the other day. It’s all about igniting consumers to consider what their pension fund is funding. Every $10 you put into a pension allows $2 to be invested in deforestation, destroying biodiversity and raping our planet … or that’s the way the argument plays out here.

After all, just in the UK, there’s over $3 trillion invested in pensions and many of these funds are investing in fossil fuels, tobacco, and arms. They could be investing in building wind farms, curing disease, making homes and driving innovation.

So, the question this movement asks, is what if your pension money could make the world better?

What if your pension could change the world? 

They have a point. Globally, pension funds have near $60 trillion invested in the markets and I always remember a pension fund manager saying to me that his biggest concern was having a pension fund with no one to pay a pension to because we killed the planet. That statement is a bit extreme, but I know what he means. I spent years thinking that the best reason not to have kids is because the world is so bad, who wants to bring children into this world? That’s a bad way of thinking. What we should be thinking is: how can I change this world to make it a better place for my children and their children.

The answer may well be through our investments and, specifically, our pension fund investments. You invest for half a century ahead. What lies half a century ahead? You can determine that. You can make that the world you want it to be, for your children and grandchildren (if you have them).

As make my money matter state:

If you have a pension, you have power. So much power that greening your pension is 21x more effective at reducing your carbon footprint than giving up flying, going veggie and switching energy provider combined.

That’s because pension funds invest money on our behalf, often into companies that do harm, supply chains that are unsustainable, and industries that accelerate climate change.

When people find out they’re accidental investors in these companies, they’re often horrified to know where their money is actually going. It’s undermining the day-to-day choices and contradicting their values, so vegans may be investing in the meat industry, medics in tobacco, and climate activists in the worst behaving fossil fuel companies.

But it doesn’t have to be this way.

And they’re backed by some quite influential people like Richard Curtis, the film director (Four Weddings and a Funeral, Love Actually and more) and founder of Comic Relief, a charity that’s raised more than a billion pounds for good causes.

The biggest message here is that you can make a huge difference by making your pension green. It has more impact than become vegetarian, giving up flying, recycling or switching energy provider. In fact, making your pension green is 21x more powerful than giving up flying, going veggie and switching energy provider. So, why don’t you do it?