Elo Mutual Pension Insurance Company becomes the first Finnish member of The Institutional Investors Group on Climate Change, Europe’s pre-eminent investor voice on climate action

- Elo has a published climate strategy and is committed to pursuing companies to report their climate impacts and to reduce their climate risks. We also encourage companies we invest in to find business oppor­tunities in climate change mitigation and the shift towards a low-carbon society.We recognise the importance of international collaboration with other investors and are proud to become the first Finnish investor to formally recognise the importance of IIGCC’s work, says Hanna Hiidenpalo, Elo’s Chief Investment Officer.

- We look forward to supporting IIGCC’s efforts going forward, particularly their dialogues with policy makers and their growing programme of collaborative investor engagement to drive corporate climate action to strengthen governance, business strategy and disclosure, adds Kirsi Keskitalo, Elo’s Responsible Investing Specialist.

- We are very pleased to welcome our first Finnish member. This is a great development that we hope will encourage other Nordic investors to join us and contribute to our work and activities going forward. We look forward to working closely with Elo as we continue to develop our programmes to help investors better integrate climate risk and opportunities into their investment practices, says Stephanie Pfeifer, CEO of IIGCC.

Elo Mutual Pension Insurance Company is one of the three largest employee pension companies in Finland. It was established on 1 January 2014 through the merger of LocalTapiola Pension and Pension Fennia, oversees the statutory employment pension provision for about 700,000 people and manages around 22,5 billion euro. It has a published climate strategy. The Asset Owners Disclosure Project AODP ranks Elo in the best AAA category, 10th among 500 asset owners and “within the top 3 per cent of investors globally when it comes to taking climate change into account in investment operations.” Elo is also signatory to the Montréal Carbon Pledge and a member of the United Nations-supported Principles for Responsible Investment (PRI), the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP) and a leading member of Finland’s Sustainable Investment Forum (Finsif).

The Institutional Investors Group on Climate Change (IIGCC) - the investor voice on climate solutions in Europe - is a collaborative forum with 143 mainly mainstream investors across 11 countries with over €20 trillion assets under management (including 9 of the top ten largest European pension funds or asset managers). Its mission is to provide investors with a common voice to encourage public policies, investment practices and corporate behaviour which address long-term risks and opportunities associated with climate change. IIGCC members consider it a fiduciary duty to ensure that stranded asset risk or other losses from climate change are minimised and that opportunities presented by climate action and the transition to a low carbon economy are maximised. They believe renewable energy, low carbon technologies and energy efficiency present significant investment opportunities which could foster European economic growth; create jobs, improve energy security and better protect public health. Follow @iigccnews or further information please visit www.iigcc.org including a full list of current members.