South Korea’s National Pension Service hones in on climate change

South Korea’s National Pension Service (NPS), the world's third-largest public pension fund, has plans to add climate change to its list of focus areas for responsible investment, according to Reuters.

The country’s manufacturing-driven growth traditionally has been anchored by carbon-intensive industries. In 2008, South Korea ranked fifth in crude oil imports, third in coal imports, and second in imports of liquefied natural gas, according to a November 2022 report from the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. The report notes that in 2018, South Korea ranked 11th in greenhouse-gas emissions compared to other countries participating in UN Framework Convention on Climate Change and seventh worldwide in annual carbon-dioxide emissions in 2019.

The NPS has traditionally focused on delivering stable returns and better managing risks by scaling down the allocation to domestic fixed income and ramping up investments in overseas and alternative assets as