What have the pension funds done to address climate change?
CalSTRS and CalPERS invest billions of dollars in real estate. One of their policies is to have at least a 20 percent reduction in energy use in their core real estate portfolio. They’re about half way there already; that was a five-year goal and we’re in the middle of that cycle. They also make significant investments in the green space. So far, the two pension funds have invested about $800 million in equities with hedge funds and others that have a specifically environmental purpose. One of the things that we’ve found is that very often when PERS or STRS adopts a new initiative in these areas that many others will follow. They know that there’s substantial staff commitment to permit thorough due diligence in these pension funds, so it’s often comforting to others to see that PERS or STRS has broken ground in these areas. The first $200 million that was invested in a pioneering effort acted as a catalyst to an additional $1.8 billion that came in from other sources. There is an ampli
