In a first for an industry super fund Vision Super has  announced they are seeking to hire an activist to join their Climate Action Team.

The initiative highlights the growing focus on sustainability and climate within the industry funds movement. Vision Super CEO, Stephen Rowe, said the Climate Action Team was formed to manage climate risk in investments and push for the policy changes needed at a national and international level.

“We’re a signatory to the Paris Agreement, and take the risks posed by climate change very seriously, so we’ve formed a Climate Action team that includes Michael Wyrsch, our Chief Investments Officer, as well as me as the CEO, and members of our investment and strategy teams,” he said.

“Markets are not pricing climate risk in appropriately, so we’ve already acted to reduce the carbon intensity of our portfolios to protect our members’ retirement savings,” Mr Rowe said. “We’re also taking a shareholder activist approach, which has already made a real difference to emissions disclosures by companies like (oil giant) Exxon.”

The new position will help Vision take action on climate change, and promote our approach to ESG (environment, sustainability, governance). The job will not be a traditional 9-5 office position for a suit wearing office dweller. The activist will need to get out to climate rallies, meetings and community events and promote Vision Super, Mr Rowe said.

Mr Rowe said Vision Super was committed to environmentally sustainable investment, providing a very low cost sustainable investment option for members.

” We are ranked 19th out of the world’s 500 largest investors for our action on climate change in the 2017 Global Climate Index by the Asset Owners Disclosure Project (AODP) and by the Responsible Investors Association of Australasia (RIAA) as the fourth largest responsible investor in Australia,” he said.