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VBDO publishes A collection of best practices for pension funds today. The publication brings together four interviews with organisations that show what responsible investment looks like in practice. Not as theory, but as concrete choices made by people who started something without knowing the outcome in advance.
The publication appears at a time when the urgency of climate change, biodiversity loss and social inequality remains undiminished, while public and political support for sustainability is under pressure in some places. In the preface, VBDO Executive Director Angélique Laskewitz writes that progress is rarely linear: it is the result of persistence, collaboration and, at times, the courage to be a pioneer without the promise of immediate reward.
Making social indicators understandable
FNV and Wageningen University are working together on research into the social indicators Dutch pension funds use in their responsible investment policies. Master’s student Noor Verhoeven is mapping which indicators related to labour and employee rights are used, how they were selected, and how they feed into investment decisions.
For FNV, the reason is clear. Social factors are hard to map and quantify, while the union itself holds a great deal of data on labour conditions across sectors. The collaboration aims to build a shared language: without common definitions and thresholds, it is difficult to compare or steer on social performance.
Follow This: voting is a tool, not a taboo
Mark van Baal of Follow This argues that the climate debate is still too often framed as a trade-off between financial returns and climate action. In his view, that is a false dilemma. The central obstacle, he says, is not technological or economic but behavioural: many investors remain uncomfortable voting against the board of a large listed company.
Follow This changed its approach this year. Instead of asking oil and gas companies to set Paris-aligned emissions reduction targets, it now asks them to explain how they will remain financially resilient under changing market conditions. Van Baal also points to co-filing of resolutions as a step that has become part of the standard stewardship toolkit.
The moral dimension of investing
Kees Gootjes, Executive Director of De Nieuwe Beurskoers (DNBK), makes the case for an explicit moral foundation under investment decisions. DNBK is an interdenominational association of churches and church-affiliated asset owners, and its work focuses on the social dimension of sustainable investment.
According to Gootjes, that moral dimension faded into the background when sustainability was primarily sold as a route to better financial performance. His point: not every responsible investment decision has to be translated into financial risk or opportunity. Churches and community organisations also see signals that do not appear in annual reports or ESG ratings, because they are in direct contact with the people affected by corporate behaviour.
That ambition took concrete form in DNBK’s Modern Slavery Netherlands Benchmark, which assesses ten Dutch listed companies on how they identify, address and prevent modern slavery in their supply chains. DNBK went on to hold substantive discussions with seven of the ten companies assessed.
Biodiversity: from ambition to investable proposition
Triodos Investment Management and Canada-based Fondaction are working together on an investment proposition around regenerative agriculture and forestry in Europe and North America. Karel Nierop, Head of Products & Solutions at Triodos IM, sees that biodiversity has become a familiar boardroom topic, while the step towards actual capital allocation remains difficult.
Investors ask practical questions: which asset class does this belong to, how does it fit with existing mandates, what does the risk-return profile look like, and who executes it on the ground. Nierop draws a comparison with the early renewable energy market: the technology existed, but investor confidence still had to be built.
The interview sets out six lessons, among them: make the theme investable, treat collaboration as a discipline rather than an intention, ensure senior leadership creates space to experiment, and position biodiversity both as an impact priority and as a portfolio risk.
Why this collection
The four examples show that meaningful change is not always about entirely new ideas, but often about doing the right things well. Alongside the successes, the publication deliberately highlights lessons learned, so that good practices do not remain isolated cases but contribute to broader adoption across the sector.
Read and download the full report here.
