The Border to Coast Climate Opportunities portfolio targets investments that will have a positive impact on climate change and support global ambitions to reach Net Zero, such as renewable energy generation, battery storage and electric vehicles. It also seeks to invest in sustainable food production, carbon capture and storage, forestry, and projects to improve the resilience of electricity grids.

Among the projects SYPA supports through the Climate Opportunities portfolio are:

• Investment in hydrogen technology, its versatility means it can fulfil various requirements including providing a long-term store of energy generated by intermittent renewables; decarbonising heat-intensive industrial procedures like steelmaking and presenting an alternative fuel solution for transportation.
• Investment in a Chilean mining company who are providing the essential components for lithium-ion batteries to power the world’s electric cars which are essential to helping us reach Net Zero.
• The construction of four synchronous condensers, focused on managing the stability of the electricity system in response to the rapid growth of renewables. This development will play a critical part in enabling more variable and weather-dependent renewables to be built as the UK looks to secure its long-term energy supply.
• A site in South Wales that uses the land at a decommissioned coal fired power station as a battery storage system. It has the capacity to store 230MV of energy which is a crucial element in guaranteeing the efficient and effective storage and utilization of renewable energy.

A further commitment of £100m has also been made to the UK Opportunities Fund that Border to Coast will be launching in April 2024, this will help to strengthen SYPA’s award winning Place Based Impact Investment portfolio, which includes the Authority’s direct development lending portfolio which has loaned around £160m since launch. Two of the loans are now fully repaid, with a strong pipeline of future transactions demonstrating the potential of the South Yorkshire economy to deliver returns to meet the Authority’s pension promises.

SYPA have also recently bolstered our commitment to our Net Zero Strategy with a £130m investment to two forestry funds, £50m to Gresham House who will make acquisitions in Scotland and Wales. The fund generates returns through the sustainable harvesting and sale of timber, increasingly used as a lower-carbon alternative to traditional building materials, and through the capital growth of the underlying land. The fund has also committed another £80m to Campbell Global, part of J P Morgan, to invest in international forestry funds. 

Councillor Jayne Dunn, Chair of South Yorkshire Pensions Authority, said: 
“The Pension Fund remains deeply committed to addressing climate change, reflecting our steadfast dedication to investing in diverse solutions aimed at combating this global challenge. This commitment underscores our ongoing efforts to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions throughout our investment portfolio. The benefits of Border to Coast’s Climate Opportunities Fund is that we can tilt our investments into more climate positive areas within the LGPS pooling framework to ensure our portfolio is supporting our Net Zero goals. Whilst our forestry investments offer a resilient, diversified source of returns while further supporting our net zero journey and efforts to combat climate change and support biodiversity.
We are confident this latest commitment will deliver the financial returns we need to pay our members’ pensions as well as contributing towards a more sustainable future.