Aviva to push UK pension savings into sustainable investments as part of plans to be Net Zero by 2040

Aviva plans for all its UK pension customers to put more than 20% of new savings into sustainable impact funds or Net Zero-aligned funds by the end of 2022 as part of its Net Zero pledge.

In the pledge, announced today, Aviva claims to be the first big global insurer to set a Net-Zero-by-2040 target, despite many of its peers laying out similar ambitions for 2050. As part of the plans, it will widen its carbon intensity disclosure to cover government bonds and directly-owned real estate from next year, and cut the carbon intensity of all its investments by 60% by 2030. 

By the end of 2022, the UK-based insurer also promised to have invested £10bn from default pension funds into low-carbon strategies and will push for its 3.5 million UK customers to invest more than 20% of new savings sustainably. 

It also outlined its new ‘climate engagement escalation programme’ with 30 key carbon emitters, which Aviva says it will divest from if they don’t take more serious action to address climate risk. It will also exit all companies with more than 5% of revenues from thermal coal by the end of 2022, it said, unless they have signed up to science-based targets.

More immediately, the firm said it will have stopped insuring companies making more than 5% of their revenue from thermal coal or unconventional fossil fuels by the end of 2021.