Scientific Beta

Financial Standard: "At the same time, research from investment strategy firm Scientific Beta suggests that super funds need to reduce the carbon intensity of their portfolios at a rate of 7% a year to meet net zero targets, in line with the EU Carbon Transition Benchmark regulatory framework. Scientific Beta notes that this goal "presently appears challenging" for Australian super funds, mainly because of the "tightrope" they're walking to adhere to the Your Future, Your Super (YFYS) performance test "

Financial Standard 28/09/2023

"(...) At the same time, research from investment strategy firm Scientific Beta suggests that super funds need to reduce the carbon intensity of their portfolios at a rate of 7% a year to meet net zero targets, in line with the EU Carbon Transition Benchmark regulatory framework. Scientific Beta notes that this goal "presently appears challenging" for Australian super funds, mainly because of the "tightrope" they're walking to adhere to the Your Future, Your Super (YFYS) performance test while also meeting commitments on decarbonisation. "Australia is unique and different you can create a go-forward funding target in developed markets and Europe does that," said Michael Aked, senior investment strategist at Scientific Beta. "Investors say, I want to be 50% under, and you can get pretty close to benchmark-like tracking error, but in Australia, you can't. "The large asset pools like super funds here can't go to a low carbon benchmark. There's a good reason why the government has said no, but you still have to transition in a way that gets us to net zero in 2050, and if you don't, there has to be some repercussion." (...)"