Years working in worldwide growth confirmed Tony Burdon, head of Make My Cash Matter, that sustainable pensions can harness trillions of kilos to construct a greater world – at a scale governments and charities can’t. He talks to Travis Elsum
Tony Burdon’s profession has lengthy been pushed by his need to make a optimistic impression. This has been the north star that has guided him internationally, from poor villages to catastrophe zones and again to the UK, every function constructing on the final. As CEO of Make My Cash Matter, he steers a profitable marketing campaign that engages and empowers UK pension scheme members to demand optimistic change for a greater future.
Burdon received his begin with growth charity Voluntary Service Abroad. Contemporary out of college, civil engineering diploma in hand, he was despatched to Malawi to work on tasks bringing water to villages. Seeing the impression of operating water on the villagers’ lives was formative. “That was it – I might use my expertise to assist folks,” he explains. “I made a decision I used to be going to work in worldwide growth for the remainder of my life.”
On coming back from Malawi, he joined Oxfam as a humanitarian engineer, working to determine water infrastructure and sanitation in refugee camps and struggle zones from Angola to Rwanda, Somalia to Iraq. He loved the work, however discovered it relentless: “You go from one catastrophe to a different, one emergency to a different, unable to sort out causes.”
Dealing with burnout, Burdon undertook a grasp’s diploma in growth research earlier than returning to Oxfam to handle abroad programmes. He then moved to coverage work and represented Oxfam on the board of Jubilee 2000, a marketing campaign that drove the cancellation of greater than US$100bn of debt owed by 35 of the world’s poorest international locations. Seeing the ability of finance to attain “impression at scale” was one other watershed second.
His subsequent transfer was to the Treasury, the place he joined a workforce advising the then-chancellor Gordon Brown on worldwide growth. He labored there for 5 years, with highlights together with working with Sir Nicholas Stern on the prime minister’s Fee for Africa. He then tried a core Treasury job in taxation, however didn’t discover the work motivating and ended up transferring to the now-defunct Division for Worldwide Growth (DFID), working in Nepal and Nigeria, in addition to in London.
It was whereas he was main DFID’s non-public sector division, grappling with the problem of mobilising funding into creating international locations, that Burdon began speaking to screenwriter and director Richard Curtis about “a marketing campaign to let funding ‘make poverty historical past’”. Curtis and former authorities particular adviser Jo Corlett developed these concepts, consulting extensively, together with with trade, to co-found Make My Cash Matter (MMMM). Burdon later joined as CEO and launched the marketing campaign in 2020.
Voice and selection
MMMM goals to “give folks extra voice and selection round how their cash is invested”, Burdon explains. An affect on the marketing campaign was a TED speak by Dr Bronwyn King, an oncologist who noticed the impacts of the tobacco trade first-hand whereas engaged on a lung most cancers ward. After assembly her pensions consultant, she was horrified to find that her pension was invested in tobacco firms.
UK pension scheme members collectively have £3trn of financial savings however many individuals are usually not engaged with their pensions. Burdon believes this lack of engagement is a key driver of the misalignment between folks’s values and their investments, as in King’s case. “Folks know they aren’t saving sufficient, they’re scared, and once they’re scared, they freeze,” he says. He thinks lots of people keep away from their pension, however this solely results in worse outcomes.
A great way to extend engagement, he argues, is “to assist pension members perceive what impression their investments have on the world round them, after which attempt to align that in a means that meets with their values.” The local weather emergency is one space over which pension scheme members have deep considerations, and they’re typically shocked to grasp that the cash of their pension has contributed to the issue.
MMMM’s spectacular stage of success throughout its three years of existence reveals that it’s doable to have interaction folks with their pensions, and the monetary companies trade would do effectively to be taught from it. Model recognition has reached 42%, and is even larger among the many under-30s, at 60%. This has been helped by witty and shareable social media messaging and movies.
One such message is the ‘21x problem’: the concept greening your pension is 21 occasions more practical at reducing carbon than different life-style tweaks, reminiscent of stopping flying and going vegetarian. This determine is predicated on evaluation supported by Aviva and sustainability consultancy Route2, Burdon explains: they in contrast a traditional world funding fund’s emissions with these of a sustainable fund for a £30,000 pension pot, after which in contrast that distinction with the emissions financial savings related to life-style decisions.
He acknowledges that the evaluation has limitations however explains that it’s primarily designed to get folks fascinated by the impression of their financial savings. “Nobody talks about pensions, and it’s your second largest monetary asset after your own home, in the event you’re fortunate sufficient to personal one.”
Investing sooner or later
MMMM has performed surveys to raised perceive what’s necessary to pension savers. The final message is evident and easy: “They need their cash to be doing the proper issues, and are shocked once they discover out it isn’t,” says Burdon.
In keeping with surveys carried out by MMMM, 60%–70% of pension scheme members need their pension to be invested in sustainability. Deforestation and local weather change are the highest two points however they’re additionally involved about gender equality, variety and workforce circumstances.
Burdon argues that aligning with pension scheme members’ values isn’t a trade-off however a prudent method to optimising risk-adjusted long-term returns, contemplating the commitments and momentum behind a sustainable transition. He factors out that greater than 50 main schemes within the UK – totalling some £1.5trn in property – have dedicated to internet zero. “The place do you need to be?” he asks. “Do you need to put money into the businesses of the longer term or the dinosaur industries of the previous? If we all know that every one firms will ultimately align with internet zero, that’s the place it’s essential to be heading.”
Urgent fund managers
As soon as individuals are conscious of their pension’s impression, MMMM helps them perceive find out how to use it to drive optimistic change. It has targeted on getting default funds to align with internet zero. “We’re saying to folks, demand that your fund adjustments,” says Burdon.
To this finish, MMMM has e mail templates on its web site for individuals who need to contact their pension fund. If their fund has not made a net-zero dedication, pension scheme members are inspired to strain it to take action. If it has, MMMM encourages members to carry it to account by asking for additional particulars, together with short-term emissions discount targets, higher stewardship and plans for eliminating deforestation.
MMMM is planning to launch a consumer-facing report this yr that can rank how effectively funds are acting on local weather change and deforestation. It should take into account emissions targets, deforestation insurance policies, proxy voting data, adjustments in portfolio emissions depth and stewardship, amongst different standards. Burdon believes the report will present “the type of info shoppers ought to have. After which I feel folks – in addition to employers – can begin to make extra knowledgeable pension decisions.”
He acknowledges that it’ll take time to get the steadiness proper in offering accessible and useful sustainability info to pension buyers. He factors to progress on reporting initiatives, such because the Taskforce on Local weather-Associated Finance Disclosures and the Worldwide Sustainability Requirements Board, and believes we are going to ultimately see “impression info, reminiscent of local weather disclosures or workforce circumstances, routinely coming from firms as a part of their monetary reporting”.
Actuaries should act
Burdon mentions {that a} fellow MMMM board member has a T-shirt that claims ‘accountants will save the world’, and wonders if it ought to say ‘actuaries’. He recognises the career’s sustainability commitments and work on this house, and acknowledges that actuaries have “a deep understanding of danger and the administration of it”. The career might be extra vigorous in clarifying what the dangers are to finance and to folks and planet, he notes, and must play a management function in transferring monetary establishments ahead.
He displays on his time as a humanitarian engineer, thrown into catastrophe conditions the place everybody would work relentlessly to avoid wasting lives. With the impacts of local weather change set to grow to be extra pervasive, frequent and extreme, he asks actuaries and the finance sector as an entire to deal with their work on sustainability dangers and managing the net-zero transition with the identical urgency and energy. “What’s the usage of retiring in a world on fireplace?”
