"Slow money has a big role to play". A Q&A with Veronica Humble

What’s your role?

Much of my time is spent talking to people who manage specific funds for us, and who have a lot of clever ideas about different types of investments. 

Ultimately, Cushon’s trustees are responsible for the investments made on behalf of members.

My team and I keep a close eye on what’s happening around our investments. It’s our job to continually ask, “How are these investments performing? How will they perform in the future?”

We bring trustees new ideas and help them to check that things are being invested in the correct way, and according to what our members need to protect and grow their pension savings.

What’s different about the way Cushon invests members’ money?

We are very focused on how to deliver good pensions in a future affected by climate change. 

It’s different from the way that most pension providers in the market are looking at it.

We're not just saying, “there is a lot of carbon in pension portfolios, we need to decarbonise it.” Of course that does need to be done, and we are doing it. 

But it’s a lot more than that. 

We’re also thinking about climate risks for the future. We’re looking at lots of different scenarios, and focusing on how we protect members’ investments in different possible futures. 

This is why we are looking at different kinds of investment, such as renewable energy technologies and ‘natural capital’, which is protecting and growing natural resources.

And to make some of those investments, we have developed a different way of investing a share of members’ funds. Some of these are private market investments, which means putting money into companies and projects that are not yet listed on stock markets. 

These private companies are where a lot of financial growth has been happening in recent years. It’s where we see a lot of the innovation around sustainability happening too. 

Investment in these areas is designed to complement the larger portion of investment that we make, which go into more conventional areas for pension funds - things like stocks and shares, and government bonds. 

How do you approach the challenge of climate change? 

We’re already seeing quite a lot of impacts from climate change, in terms of hurricanes and fires and floods. It's visible right now. You can no longer say that this is something that will just happen in the future. 

But I’m a positive person, I believe we can shape what comes next. 

I want us to be remembered as the first generation who actually built a sustainable society. And I think pensions, as long-term capital, as ‘slow money’, have a very big role to play.

We can't assume that things will just continue on the same trajectory, because we always innovate, we always change as humanity, as societies.

And lots of topics are very connected to climate. So if we focus on addressing climate, many other important challenges will be addressed too. 

We can't fix climate without fixing land use. And fixing land use means addressing biodiversity and other connected issues. They are not separate things at all.

What are you excited about Cushon investing in? 

Nature-related investments are, I think, quite exciting. We are going to need nature better protected and restored. 

And science and technology investments too. This is something the UK is really strong in, and where we have a great track record of innovation. 

So I’m excited about finding suitable investments that align to those opportunities, and align well to our members’ goals. 

It’s early days right now, but I’m looking forward to being able to share more about investments in these areas as we make them in the coming years. 

What’s the most important thing for members to understand about their pension?

Some people like choosing their own investments. You can absolutely do this with Cushon, we have a range of funds to select from. 

But you’re more likely to be one of the big majority of our members who delegates decisions about how your pension money is invested, to us. 

To those people I would say: don’t worry! 

We are investing on your behalf, we think a lot about how to do it well, and we have all sorts of careful structures to make sure we do things in your best interests.  

We are very focused on making the right investment decisions for you. 

Cushon has developed as a different kind of pension provider, and this has enabled us to innovate, for example with our app. 

But we are also now part of NatWest Group, and this obviously gives us extra security and access to more expertise and resources. I think this is really good news for our members.

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NatWest Cushon