How to protect your retirement savings and tackle the climate crisis through your pension

This week on rabble radio, labour reporter Gabriela Calugay-Casuga sits down with Patrick DeRochie, the senior manager at Shift: Action for Pension Wealth and Planet Health. The two discuss how Shift is fighting to protect pensions and the climate. 

“We track Canada's 11 or 12 largest public pension plans, together they have over $2 trillion Canadian and assets under management. What we've found so far in our research is that none of these funds are aligning their massive investment portfolios with climate safety, with limiting global temperature increase to 1.5 degrees Celsius, and ensuring that their own beneficiaries have a safe climate future to retire into.” – Patrick DeRochie.

About Shift: Action for Pension Wealth and Planet Health 

Patrick DeRochie is the senior manager for Shift: Action for Pension Wealth and Planet Health, a charitable project that mobilizes pension plan members to engage their investment managers on the climate crisis. 

At Shift, DeRochie is focused on tracking and analyzing the fossil fuel investments and climate plans of Canadian pension funds and building a network of pension beneficiaries advocating to invest their retirement savings in a zero-carbon future. Previously, DeRochie was climate and energy program manager with Environmental Defence Canada and a political organizer with SEIU Healthcare, one of Canada’s largest healthcare labour unions. DeRochie has been deeply involved in developing federal and provincial climate and energy policy and regulations and acts as a regular commentator in national media. 

Shift: Action for Pension Wealth and Planet Health is a charitable initiative that works to protect pensions and the climate by bringing together beneficiaries and their pension funds on the climate crisis. Shift helps Canadians understand where their retirement wealth is invested by tracking pension fund investments and strategy. Shift helps educate and empower Canadians on how to engage constructively with their pension funds to address the climate crisis. 

Do you want to take action today? Want to learn more about who your own pension manager is? Learn more about Shift and the work they do here. 

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