ACC plans big cuts to carbon
One of the biggest investment funds in the country – owned by the Accident Compensation Corporation – plans to rapidly decarbonise over the next decade.
ACC holds $46 billion in investments to pay for injuries. Some of this cash is in equities, better known as stocks and shares in companies. The agency intends to reduce the carbon intensity of all its equities by 50 per cent by 2030.
It also plans to slash its corporate greenhouse emissions by 60 per cent by 2025.
These pledges, approved by the ACC board last week, align the agency with the spirit of the Climate Change Response (Zero Carbon) Amendment Act passed last year.
ACC board chair Dame Paula Rebstock said the greenhouse gas outputs associated with the investment fund significantly outweighed its workplace emissions. The agency’s largest source of workplace emissions, car and air travel, total approximately 3000 tonnes of carbon dioxide a year.
In contrast, the equities in the fund have been estimated to produce about 1.2 million tonnes of carbon dioxide annually, she said. (New Zealand’s total emissions are about 80 million). ‘‘You can see why we’re doing so much heavy lifting on the investment side.’’
Green MP Chlo¨e Swarbrick welcomed the move but wanted ACC to go further and commit to totally divesting from fossil fuel investments.
The ACC has already made some progress tackling its emissions. Since 2010, the carbon intensity of its equity portfolio has decreased by 19 per cent. Decarbonising its investments involves both buying more equities in low-carbon companies and encouraging companies it already owns shares in to transition to low carbon ways, said Rebstock.
Since December, ACC no longer invests in any company that makes more than 30 per cent of its revenue from coal burned to make electricity.
‘‘We will be asking companies – any time we meet with them, as we do regularly of any company we invest in – what they’re doing on climate change. We know that’s influential,’’ Rebstock said. ‘‘It must send powerful signals to the underlying companies about where the future sits. That’s the contribution we can make.’’