Issue - meetings

7.1          The Committee considered a report on the review of the Environmental, Social and
Governance (ESG) arrangements of the East Sussex Pension Fund conducted by PIRC in response to the notice of motion passed by East Sussex County Council.

7.2          The Committee discussion included the following key issues:

• The Fund has undertaken a lot of work, via the ESG working group, to develop an understanding of ESG matters and how they can be included in the Fund’s strategy, but it is recognised that more work needs to be done consulting with stakeholders on ESG matters. These include ACCESS, the Fund’s investment managers, employers and members.
• The Fund will be issuing a responsible investment statement to all employers and scheme members over the summer. It may also bring reports for consideration to the ACCESS Joint Committee to speed up the development of a consensus view on ESG amongst the 11 member Funds.
• An ESG working group helps to ensure that there is time and space dedicated to considering ESG matters. However, delivering on ESG commitments takes significant time and resources, for example, ensuring investment managers have signed up to the new UK Stewardship Code, and monitoring the carbon footprint of companies both require considerable officer time. The Fund is expected to develop a larger team in the next few months that should have sufficient resources to carry out the work.

7.3         The Committee RESOLVED to note the report