At the invitation of Netspar, Arjen van der Heide and I recently gave a flash webinar on sustainable investment by Dutch pension funds. Our webinar was part of the 11th edition of the Pensioen3daagse, an annual public awareness campaign organized by Wijzer in Geldzaken, an initiative of the Netherlands Ministry of Finance.
Pension is a difficult topic and many people don’t know the details of their own retirement savings. Each year, the Pensioen3daagse hosts special events to inform Dutch citizens in an accessible manner, in collaboration with Netspar and other partners. This year, more than 2.000 people signed up to attend the flash webinars on a range of current themes related to pension.
Coinciding with the COP26 climate summit in Glasgow, the Pensioen3daagse offered a great opportunity to shed additional light on sustainable investment by Dutch pension funds. To introduce our audience to an otherwise very technical topic, Arjen and I organized our lecture around five questions:
- What are the origins of sustainable investment?
- What does sustainable investment entail?
- Is sustainable investment profitable?
- What are the pros and cons of sustainable investment?
- What can pension plan members do themselves?
Broadcasting from the Aegon studio, we answered each of these questions in a 20-minute presentation. Aalt-Jan Smits assisted as online moderator.
For more information on our ongoing research on sustainable pension investment, click here.
Natascha van der Zwan 