3.1 Strathclyde

General information

Website: http://www.spfo.org.uk/
Member councils: Argyll and Bute, East Ayrshire, East Dunbartonshire, East Renfrewshire, Glasgow City (administering authority), Inverclyde, North Ayrshire, North Lanarkshire, Renfrewshire, South Ayrshire, South Lanarkshire, West Dunbartonshire

With £24 billion in assets, Strathclyde Pension Fund is Scotland’s largest local authority pension fund. The fund’s 250,000 members include employees of 12 different local authorities and more than 150 other organisations, such as Scottish Water, the Strathclyde Partnership for Transport, the University of West of Scotland and several colleges.[1]

Investments

A list of assets made available to us under freedom of information showed that Strathclyde Pension Fund held shares with a market value of £120 million (0.5% of the fund) as at 30 September 2020 in 16 companies that are involved in nuclear weapons work:

Company Value of shares
(£ million)*
Airbus 27.3
BAE Systems 30.9
Boeing 2.0
General Dynamics 0.8
Honeywell International 9.9
Huntington Ingalls Industries 0.1
Jacobs Engineering 0.3
L3 Harris 0.9
Larsen and Toubro 0.6
Leidos 0.3
Lockheed Martin 2.2
Northrop Grumman 1.1
Raytheon 1.9
Safran 39.3
Serco 2.4
Textron 0.2
Total 120.2 million

*Strathclyde provided figures rounded to the nearest tenth of a million as shown here.
Visit the resources page of our website to download our Strathclyde Pension Fund briefing sheet: https://nukedivestmentscotland.org/template-letters-2/

A more recent asset list shows that Strathclyde Pension Fund no longer has direct holdings in 10 of the companies listed above.[2] However, the fund still holds direct investments in six producers[3] (worth a total of £124 million) and still invests in the other producers via pooled funds.[4]

Policy

Strathclyde Pension Fund’s statement of investment principles says that the fund is a “responsible investor and adopts policies and practices which acknowledge the importance of environmental, social and governance (ESG) issues”.[5] The pensions committee has rejected divestment as an option,[6] preferring to “engage” with companies on ESG issues (see section 3A.1 for more on Strathclyde’s engagement activities). This policy allows the fund to continue investing in harmful industries, such as arms and fossil fuels.

There is growing support for a different approach among Strathclyde Pension Fund’s members, however. Four member councils, Renfrewshire, West Dunbartonshire, East Ayrshire and Inverclyde have now passed a resolution calling on the fund to divest from nuclear weapons companies.[7]

In April 2021, Glasgow City Council passed a resolution calling on the fund to divest from fossil fuels [8] and in May the Council passed a resolution in support of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. Strathclyde Pension Fund’s continuing investment in the nuclear weapons industry is clearly at odds with the council’s support for a global ban on nuclear weapons.

Action

If you live in any of the other eight council areas covered by Strathclyde Pension Fund (Argyll and Bute, East Dunbartonshire, East Renfrewshire, Glasgow City, North Ayrshire, North Lanarkshire, South Ayrshire or South Lanarkshire), please urge your local councillors to support a nuclear weapons divestment resolution: https://nukedivestmentscotland.org/local-authority-divestment-resolutions/

NOTES

[1] https://www.spfo.org.uk/index.aspx?articleid=14493.

[2] Dated 31 December 2020: https://www.spfo.org.uk/CHttpHandler.ashx?id=52481&p=0.

[3] Airbus, BAE Systems, Safran, Honeywell, Larsen and Toubro, Serco.

[4] A representative of Strathclyde Pension Fund explained via email that the fund moved its North American passive equity strategy into pooled funds in the fourth quarter of 2020. So while the fund no longer has direct holdings in the 10 companies, it now owns “units in the pooled funds and those funds own the underlying companies”. This is “a structural change, not ‘divestment’”, according to the fund. See also: https://theferret.scot/pension-fund-accused-of-hiding-investments/.

[5] http://www.spfo.org.uk/CHttpHandler.ashx?id=12617&p=0.

[6] https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/15567786.scotlands-biggest-public-pension-scheme-happy-to-keep-investment-in-arms-tradersbut-cant-say-who-they-sell-to/.

[7] Renfrewshire: http://www.nuclearpolicy.info/news/nfla-welcomes-renfrewshire-council-resolution-nuclear-weapons-divestment-scottish-forum-discusses-just-transition-low-carbon-local-energy/; West Dunbartonshire: https://www.nuclearpolicy.info/news/nfla-welcomes-west-dunbartonshire-council-prohibition-nuclear-weapons-climate-emergency-divestment-fossil-fuels/; Midlothian: https://www.nuclearpolicy.info/news/nfla-welcomes-further-council-resolutions-supporting-treaty-prohibition-nuclear-weapons-and-divestment/. In the case of Inverclyde, the resolution calls on Strathclyde to divest from the arms industry as a whole: https://nukedivestmentscotland.org/local-authority-divestment-resolutions/.

[8] https://foe.scot/press-release/climate-activists-celebrate-glasgow-city-council-support-for-campaign-to-end-500-million-fossil-fuel-investment/.