Description
Our duty is to protect the millions of people who belong to UK defined benefit pension schemes. When these schemes fail, we’re here to support their members. When an employer becomes insolvent and its pension scheme cannot afford to pay its promised pensions, we compensate scheme members for the pensions they have lost. We take over responsibility for payments once we’ve assessed that a scheme cannot afford to buy benefits from an insurance company which are equal to, or more than, the PPF would pay. Currently around 277,000 people are members of the PPF. Before the PPF, these people could have faced significant financial uncertainty and hardship. We protect approximately 10 million members of more than 5,000 DB pension schemes. Approach
The PPF has considered the PRI’s Principles as a base for guiding our own core RI beliefs and investment principles, since becoming a PRI signatory in 2007. Our RI strategy and framework incorporates ESG risks and opportunities across our investment process, with an essential focus on risk management. It covers our processes and procedures, while also facilitating flexibility and longevity, to enable us to keep pace with evolving regulation in this space. Our RI strategy is primarily focused on integrating material ESG issues into our investment process, which we believe allows us to make more informed decisions and enhances the value of our assets. We take a materiality-based approach to relevant ESG factors, and give particular consideration to climate change, stewardship, and transparency. ESG integration is achieved by engaging with and advancing the ESG practices of our external managers and underlying issuers, rather than divesting. We expect our external managers to integrate all relevant material factors into their investment analysis and decisions, and demonstrate active stewardship. Our expectations vary between different asset classes, depending on relevance (such as time horizons or types of instruments used) and current best practice.