Aussie super funds leading double lives
New analysis conducted by Market Forces has exposed several of Australia’s largest 30 superannuation funds after they increased their investment exposure to top fossil fuel contributors in 2022.
Investment exposure of super funds to companies working on new or established coal, oil and gas projects rose by 50 per cent or AUD$34 billion in the past 12 months, recording an average of nine per cent of members’ share investments exposed to these companies.
Market Forces also estimated from its analysis that more than $140 billion of Australian members’ super savings are currently invested in companies directly involved in fossil fuels.
“Super funds are making a mockery of their own commitments to net zero by buying up wholesale in companies expanding fossil fuels and letting them get away with trashing our climate,” Brett Morgan, Superannuation Funds Campaigner at Market Forces, said.
“Australia’s super sector is collectively responsible for threatening members’ safety in retirement with a whopping $140 billion gamble against a stable climate future.”
The firm also released its 2023 Climate Wreckers Index which features 190 global companies “with the biggest plans to expand the fossil fuel industry”, and highlighted the percentage of exposure and total value Australian superannuation funds and their products have to this index.
The top funds included:
- Commonwealth Super Corps’ PSS Default option with 11.5 per cent (approximately $1.1 billion)
- MLC’s MySuper Growth option with 11.4 per cent (approximately $1.5 billion)
- Russell Investments’ Goal Tracker option with 11.0 per cent (approximately $280 million)
- UniSuper’s Balanced option with 10.9 per cent (approximately $1.9 billion)
- Brighter Super’s MySuper option with 10.8 per cent (approximately $630 million)
- AMP’s MySuper 1970s option with 10.7 per cent (approximately $410 million)
- CareSuper’s Balanced MySuper option with 10.7 per cent (approximately $640 million)
- Australian Retirement Trust’s Lifecycle Balanced Pool option with 10.5 per cent (approximately $2.3 billion)
- OnePath’s ANZ Smart Choice 1970s option with 10.5 per cent (approximately $350 million)
- Equipsuper’s Equip MySuper option with 10.4 per cent (approximately $360 million)
Despite having the highest total value of exposure to companies featured on the Climate Wreckers Index, AustralianSuper was edged out of the top ten by 0.1 per cent. Its Balanced option sat at 10.3 per cent and approximately $8.8 billion.
This comes after the super fund saw its stake in Woodside Energy increase after Woodside’s takeover of BHP’s petroleum business and AustralianSuper’s merger with LUCRF in 2022, ending the year with its Balanced option holding over 51 million Woodside shares.
“Australia’s biggest super fund has bought up big in Australia’s biggest climate wrecker and a growing number of members are outraged by this,” Morgan said.
“AustralianSuper needs to explain to its millions of members why it’s actively buying shares in Woodside while failing to address this company’s reckless fossil fuel expansion plans.”
Double lives? you mean double standards – no surprises there
Does Market Forces want all these super funds and other Australian investors to sell, leaving Woodside owned by overseas entities, Governments and people to receive the dividends? Or for the mining to stop, resulting in the Federal Budget either cancelling things it spends money on, increasing taxes elsewhere, or racking up debt for future generations. And what happens to energy costs? I’m all for a cleaner environment, but it would be far more helpful if Market Forces explained how everything should work. Hoping there’s a simple and easy answer, but concerned there’s none.