Danish pension and insurance companies have adopted a common set of measuring principles to help reduce carbon emissions from their investments.

In 2019, the Danish government launched 13 climate partnerships in order to produce recommendations on how Denmark’s business community may contribute towards nationwide targets of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 70 per cent by 2030.

The partnership for the financial sector, led by PensionDanmark CEO, Torben Möger Pedersen, has now produced concrete measuring points for the sector’s climate commitments.

The standards also include reporting rules on damage prevention, active ownership and use of paper.

“Since we handed our recommendations over to the government, our industry has worked hard to prepare an industry recommendation that can help create transparency with regard to our goals for clients’ climate footprint, client interaction and project delivery, sustainability in our business models, and cutting down our own emissions,” said Pedersen.

Going forward, climate footprint will be measured consistently across the board, while targets focus on reducing clients’ investment carbon footprint.

“It is a demanding task when our companies are calculating total carbon emissions from total investments. But we are committed to our goals of cutting carbon emissions, and that is why it has been so important to get a common standard in place,” said Kent Damsgaard, CEO of Forsikring & Pension.

“We all need to contribute to fight global climate change, and now we’re taking the lead as an industry and creating transparency with regard to our climate footprint. We are the largest investors in this country, and that obviously puts us under an obligation,” he added.

Last month, Forsikring & Pension came out in support of Danish Prime Minister, Mette Frederiksen’s, progress with the government’s climate roadmap.

At the DI Summit, the Prime Minister confirmed that the government was on track with its policy to introduce climate targets set to be in place to meet Denmark’s climate goal for 2030.

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