THE Cheshire Pension Fund invests large sums of money to fund the pensions of workers of councils and schools in Cheshire. I have served on the Cheshire Pension Fund Investment Committee for several years now and decisions, which involve hundreds of millions of pounds, are quite rightly taken carefully and confidentially; this can make the speed of taking action frustratingly slow.

So I was very pleased to see the announcement, made in October that the pension fund has moved £500 million of its funds into a ‘climate factor fund’ which avoids investing in companies with high carbon emissions and supports companies investing in green technologies.

The decision was taken in the expectation that the investment will outperform the market, so that there are good financial as well as ethical reasons for making this investment; it’s always nice to do well out of doing good.

When I first started campaigning about climate change the Congleton MP was Ann Winterton, who denied that there was any manmade climate change.

Now there seems to be significant impetus behind real plans to tackle climate change and those companies who are not engaged will suffer financially. Cheshire East Council is also now putting money behind its commitment to tackling climate change.

The council is consulting on its new environmental strategy and also on its budget for 2020/21 which allocates £653,000 to back up the commitment to be carbon neutral by 2025; search for ‘consultations’ on the cheshireeast.gov.uk website.

It is great to see this action; I only hope that it is not too little and too late.

Sam Corcoran MA(Oxon), FCA, CTA (Fellow), Labour & Co-operative Councillor for Sandbach Heath & East