Shutterstock.com
The Royal Pharmaceutical Society (RPS) has disinvested from fossil fuels in the majority of its investments, according to its director of operations.
Addressing the RPS Assembly on 16 March 2022, Rick Russell said that the Society has fully disinvested from fossil fuels in the fund in which 80% of its investments are held.
The remaining fund, which contains 20% of the RPS’s investments, is moving towards having two separate funds, with one exclusive of fossil fuels. When those funds launch, the RPS will move all its investment to the fund that excludes fossil fuels, Russel said.
The announcement follows a decision by the RPS Assembly, taken in November 2021, to move to active divestment, meaning that the Society would sell any investments that it held in companies that extract fossil fuels, such as coal, gas, oil and tar sands. It pledged to compete this process by the end of 2022.
As of May 2021, the Society’s investment portfolio was valued at £7.9m in the year ending 31 December 2020.
“We are very pleased to have fully disinvested from fossil fuels with the Society’s major investment fund,” Russell told The Pharmaceutical Journal.
“We are also working very closely with our much smaller investment fund to exclude fossil fuels. They are introducing new funds which comply with our declaration and those funds are currently going through the regulatory approval process, which is time consuming.
“At this point in time, we are pleased to say that we are still working ahead of our stated disinvestment deadline.”
