IPEBLA 20th Biennial Conference, Dublin: Developments in fiduciary law related to environmental, social and governance investing

26 May 2026

IPEBLA 2026 Workshop on ESG factors (1).png

Durham Law School Professor in Practice, Philip Bennett, joined Mark Firman, Partner in leading Canadian firm Blakes, and Professor of Law, Maria O’Brien, of Boston University in presenting a workshop on the extent to which ESG factors may or must be taken into account by DB and DC pension plan fiduciaries/trustees in Canada, the UK, and the US.

Topics covered in the workshop included:

Relevance of non-financial ESG factors,
Differences between public and private sector plans in use of non-financial ESG factors,
Relevance of motive/purpose in use of non-financial ESG factors when investing,
Whether political/policy aspirations of the executive branch on plan investments may be taken into account and examples of mandation of the investment of plan investments,
Relevance of views of plan beneficiaries to investing plan assets, and
Differences between DB and DC pension plans.

By way of background reading for the workshop the speakers prepared an overview of the legal rules on the extent to which ESG factors may/must be taken into account
by DB and DC pension plan fiduciaries/trustees in Canada, the UK, and the US. A copy of that overview document can be accessed here: IPEBLA 2026 Workshop on ESG factors

In the UK context and the Local Government Pension Scheme (the “LGPS”) the workshop drew out the distinction between the permission given to those investing the assets of the LGPS:

to make social investments if there was no risk of significant detriment, and
to make other investments where other non-financial factors could be taken into account if there was no significant risk of financial detriment,

and, in summary, for both investment categories a member views hurdle was also cleared.

For UK private sector occupational pension schemes, the workshop drew out the differences of legal views in the UK as to whether non-financial factors could be taken into account.