Knowing where our pension funds are invested is a first step to creating a better world

Peace campaigners are investing in arms manufacturers, vegans are investing in meat production and environmental campaigners are investing in fossil fuels. This dichotomy cannot continue, writes Richard Curtis

There’s £3 trillion invested by UK pension funds alone – this is our money, and we can choose where it goes (PA)

I’ve always been interested in campaigns with big ideas, from Comic Relief to Make Poverty History. But what I certainly hadn’t focused on was where we put our pension money. And this, as I learned last year, is one of the most important things we can all do to help build a better world.

In March 2019, I happened upon a TED talk by an Australian oncologist called Dr Bronwyn King. She’d spent her whole career trying to save the lives of patients with cancer. And then in her mid-30s, she had her first meeting with her pension manager. She found out that three of the top businesses her retirement pot was invested in were tobacco companies. During her life, she realised, she may actually have contributed to more deaths through her investments than she’d saved with her life’s work.

It turns out this contradiction is everywhere: our pensions can make us unwitting hypocrites. Peace campaigners are accidentally investing in arms manufacturers, vegans are investing in meat production and environmental campaigners are investing in fossil fuels. In the US recently, there was the terrible story that the pension funds of Florida teachers had invested in the guns used in school shootings. This dichotomy cannot continue.