\n<\/p>\n
A major Australian super fund has been accused of greenwashing after it continued to badge an investment option as \u201csustainable\u201d despite quietly halving its environmental criteria.<\/p>\n
UniSuper, which invests $158bn on behalf of 670,000 members, promotes its Global Environmental Opportunities option as a portfolio \u201cselected on the basis of environmental considerations\u201d.<\/p>\n
Initially the option invested only in companies and assets that derive at least 40% of their revenue from \u201cenvironmental themes\u201d such as alternative energy, energy efficiency and \u201cgreen building\u201d. The fund also applied \u201cnegative screens\u201d, excluding investments on the basis of exposure to products such as fossil fuels or weapons.<\/p>\n
In March 2025 UniSuper reduced the threshold to 20%, and the Global Environmental Opportunities option now lists several technology companies, including Microsoft and Nvidia, among its top investments.<\/p>\n
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On Thursday the Environmental Defenders Office lodged a formal complaint with the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (Asic) on behalf of UniSuper member John Dixon, accusing the fund of potentially misleading representations.<\/p>\n
The concerns included retaining the name and presenting the option on UniSuper\u2019s website under the heading \u201csustainable and environmental branded options\u201d, despite watering down its environmental criteria.<\/p>\n
A spokesperson for UniSuper said changes to the Global Environmental Opportunities option were made \u201cto expand the investible universe while maintaining the option\u2019s environmental theme\u201d.<\/p>\n
Dixon said he was shocked to find several technology companies among the option\u2019s top investments, including some with significant and rising greenhouse gas emissions.<\/p>\n
\u201cI thought, this can\u2019t be right, someone has made a mistake.\u201d<\/p>\n
UniSuper communicated the changes to members via its website and in an email to members. The email did not contain a summary of the changes but invited people to click through to a pdf document.<\/p>\n
\u201cHaving made the change they really didn\u2019t explain it to members,\u201d Dixon said. \u201cHardly anybody would have twigged.\u201d<\/p>\n
The complaint letter said: \u201cThe weakening of the investment criteria for the GEO option and paucity of communication to members regarding this change contribute to the likelihood that option holders and prospective option holders have been misled by UniSuper\u2019s conduct.\u201d It asked Asic to investigate.<\/p>\n
Dixon wrote to UniSuper in August outlining his concerns but decided to make a formal complaint after receiving a response he found unsatisfactory.<\/p>\n
He said he UniSuper should change the name of the fund and be more upfront with members about changes to the investment criteria.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A major Australian super fund has been accused of greenwashing after it continued to badge an investment option as \u201csustainable\u201d despite quietly halving its environmental criteria. UniSuper, which invests $158bn on behalf of 670,000 members, promotes its Global Environmental Opportunities option as a portfolio \u201cselected on the basis of environmental considerations\u201d. Initially the option invested<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":44758,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[50],"tags":[2124,18080,2599,21521,2045,10429,554,6666,23171,23170],"class_list":{"0":"post-44757","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-environment","8":"tag-accused","9":"tag-element","10":"tag-environmental","11":"tag-greenwashing","12":"tag-investment","13":"tag-option","14":"tag-quietly","15":"tag-reducing","16":"tag-superannuation","17":"tag-unisuper"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44757","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=44757"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44757\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/44758"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=44757"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=44757"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=44757"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}