New QC opinion confirms pension fund trustees' legal duty to assess climate risk

The document outlines a legal opinion stating that UK pension fund trustees must account for climate risks in investment decisions if those risks are financially material, warning that failure to do so could lead to legal challenges.

• Pension fund trustees are legally required to incorporate climate risk into their investment decisions if such risks have material financial implications for the fund's performance. The legal opinion describes this obligation as being "beyond reasonable argument" and states that ignoring these risks "would not be proper exercise" of the trustees' powers.
• The legal duty to consider climate risk applies to both immediate and longer-term financial risks. Furthermore, if pension fund members raise the issue of climate risk, trustees are legally obligated to evaluate whether the risk is financially material, provided the claim is not "obviously fanciful".
• The briefing asserts that there is "abundant evidence" that climate change is a financially material risk, citing reports from the Bank of England, the FSB, BlackRock, the Economist Intelligence Unit, Mercer, and the Cambridge Institute for Sustainable Leadership.

APA

QC, K. B., & Rickards, J. (2016). New QC opinion confirms pension fund trustees' legal duty to assess climate risk. ClientEarth. https://www.clientearth.org/media/kyanur4m/investor-briefing-on-new-qc-opinion-pension-trustees-and-climate-risk-ce-en.pdf

Chicago

QC, Keith Bryant, and James Rickards. New QC opinion confirms pension fund trustees' legal duty to assess climate risk. ClientEarth, 2016. https://www.clientearth.org/media/kyanur4m/investor-briefing-on-new-qc-opinion-pension-trustees-and-climate-risk-ce-en.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=QC |first1=Keith Bryant |last2=Rickards |first2=James |title=New QC opinion confirms pension fund trustees' legal duty to assess climate risk |publisher=ClientEarth |date=December 2016 |url=https://www.clientearth.org/media/kyanur4m/investor-briefing-on-new-qc-opinion-pension-trustees-and-climate-risk-ce-en.pdf |access-date=23 October 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{qc2016new, author = {QC, Keith Bryant and Rickards, James}, title = {{New QC opinion confirms pension fund trustees' legal duty to assess climate risk}}, institution = {ClientEarth}, year = {2016}, month = dec, url = {https://www.clientearth.org/media/kyanur4m/investor-briefing-on-new-qc-opinion-pension-trustees-and-climate-risk-ce-en.pdf}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }