Skip to main content

Mid-size super funds defy APRA’s climate risk expectations

Mike Taylor5 August 2022
Climate change

The Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA) may believe that scale is the key to superannuation fund survive but its own Climate risk self-assessment survey has revealed that where climate change is concerned mid-sized super funds were better prepared than most.

The APRA survey, the results of which were released yesterday, revealed that, overall, superannuation funds outscored the banks and insurance companies across the key metrics.

And while the regulator suggested that its survey had confirmed that larger institutions’ self-reported responses tended to indicate a more mature climate risk approach, this was not the case with superannuation.

“Overall, the survey responses show there was a positive correlation between the size of the institution and maturity of climate risk practices,” the APRA analysis said. “This broadly indicates that larger and more complex institutions have assessed themselves as having more advanced capabilities, commensurate with their resourcing, in managing climate risks.”

“At an industry level, the banking sector responses showed the strongest correlation between size and maturity, while medium sized superannuation institutions reported better self-assessments of maturity than both larger and smaller institutions within the surveyed group,” it said.

The APRA survey revealed that superannuation funds, overall, had provided more climate risk training to staff and outstripped the banks and insurers with respect to both medium-term and long-term strategic planning,

Mike Taylor

Mike Taylor

Managing Editor/Publisher, Financial Newswire

Subscribe to comments
Be notified of
0 Comments
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments