Campaign Update – February 2024

Changes in USS investment portfolio

There have been 35 changes in the ‘USS top 100 public investments’ between the list published in June 2023 and October 2023.  The website itemises the top 100 public investments and there is a searchable database for smaller investments (less than £ 30 million) however the exact holding is not reported.^[1] In the following, we report on changes in fossil fuel holdings, reveal weaknesses in the recent USS member surveys, and set out questions of the candidates in the upcoming UCU General Secretary elections.

Fossil Fuel holdings

Reductions	June 2023	October 2023
Shell	£ 52 million	Less than £ 30 million
BP	£ 43 million	Less than £ 30 million
Increased investments
Petroleo Brasilero	Less than £ 27 million	£ 38 million
Exxon Mobil	Less than £ 27 million	£ 37 million
CNOOC (Chinese oil and gas)	Less than £ 27 million	£ 32 million

Thus it appears that USS has increased its holdings in three fossil fuel companies which are planning to increase fossil fuel production and with inadequate plans for emission reduction.

We have written to USS Investment Management asking: Please tell us 1) whether you believe these three companies are on a realistic pathway to keep global warming to less than 1.5 degrees and present the evidence for this; 2) whether you support ExxonMobil taking legal action to block the ‘Follow this’ motion at its AGM and 3) whether you will support the ‘Follow this’ motion at the Shell AGM this year.

Member surveys

A survey for retired members was sent out early in January 2024.  This is the first time for many years that the views of retired members have been sought.  

In our view the questions regarding the Climate Emergency and seeking members’ views on investing in fossil fuels were badly worded.  For example one question asked:

1 The following is a list of key long-term global risks identified by the World Economic forum

Which of these do you feel are most important for USS to prioritise in our planning? Select up to 5 answers

Natural disasters and extreme weather events

Widespread cybercrime and cyber insecurity

Erosion of social cohesion and societal polarisation

Large scale environmental damage incidents

Biodiversity loss and ecosystem collapse

Large-scale involuntary migration

Geoeconomic confrontation

Failure of climate change adaptation

Natural resource crises

Failure to mitigate climate change

We cannot see how the responses from participants to the questions enable USSIM to prioritise investments since apart from ‘Widespread cybercrime’ they all relate to the Climate Emergency. 

Other questions appear to raise a choice between avoiding carbon intensive industries or focussing on (financial) returns.  However USS is already committed to reducing carbon emissions whilst at the same time focussing on financial returns so this is a false dichotomy.  In addition, many other pension funds are getting good financial returns while avoiding carbon intensive industries. 

We have raised our concerns about the questions with USS and asked when the results of the survey will be published

UCU General Secretary Elections

In advance of the elections we asked all four candidates two questions –

1) Do you agree that there is an urgent need for USS to divest from fossil fuels? 

2) What actions would you take to make this happen if elected to General Secretary?

The responses are published here.

More information

More detail on the above issues and other work can be found on our website.

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^[1] A summary of the latest data can be found here