Australia’s corporate watchdog is taking a legal action in oppostion to a second pension fund over greenwashing, charging with Active Super of providing misinformation to customers about barring investments on ethical base. The Australian Securities and Investments Commission (Asic) alleges the A$13.5 billion (S$11.9 billion) fund held 28 holdings, which exposed members to safety it claimed to hinder. They involved shares in gambling companies, tobacco, Russian entities, oil tar sands and coal mining.
“We know that funds are to bring members with promises their investments will not be revealed to certain industries,” Asic Deputy Chair Sarah Court said in a statement on Aug 11. “Funds must have solid proof to back their claims and make sure they are not pledging exclusions that they can not guarantee.” Active Super was one of two Australian pensions earlier in 2023 that eradicated environmental, social and governance (ESG) risk disclosures from their websites to review the precision and authenticity of the information, Bloomberg conveyed in March. The other fund, A$115 billion UniSuper, published a reviewed version of its climate risk report in May, revealing it had a huger carbon footprint than first estimated.