HESTA faces greenwashing legal complaint from fund member

Concerned that HESTA’s representations of its climate credentials and engagement strategy with major fossil fuel companies could amount to greenwashing, a member of the superannuation fund has stepped up with a legal challenge. 

Fund member Jo Dodds has called on HESTA to urgently impose an immediate public deadline on “big climate polluters” Santos and Woodside to commit to stop developing new and expanded fossil fuel projects, failing which it would divest from both companies. 

In a letter filed through the Environmental Defenders Office (EDO) and in coordination with climate change research organisation Market Forces, she outlined HESTA’s current representations may amount to misleading and deceptive conduct per the Corporations Act 2001 and the Australian Securities and Investment Commission Act 2001.

Presently, HESTA’s methods of engagement were “limited” and “lack teeth”, the letter said. 

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“HESTA continues to negotiate very politely and patiently with the big climate polluters,” explained Dodds, who is president of Bushfire Survivors for Climate Action.

“That would be ok except bushfire survivors know, viscerally, how urgent emissions reductions are.”

In March 2018, her own home in Tathra had been impacted by bushfires and, in the letter, she highlighted concerns that post-bushfire regrowth was already dangerously dry across eastern Australia, with grassfires burning in Queensland.

"Personally, I can’t plan for a comfortable retirement while my community faces increasingly dangerous bushfires. Our homes are on the line here and experts are raising the alarm of an approaching El Niño,” Dodds said.

“Are we supposed to be patient and wait while our superannuation provider invests our money in businesses that make our homes unsafe?”

The letter, which was addressed to HESTA chief executive Debby Blakey, also noted that neither Santos nor Woodside appeared to be implementing strategies to genuinely decarbonise.

Recently, Woodside announced the final investment decision in the new Trion oil field in the Gulf of Mexico, which would represent a 12 per cent increase against its current estimated emissions. 

In the letter, EDO on behalf of Dodds urged the super fund to publish a detailed, public engagement policy with key milestones and escalation steps, including when divestment would occur if the companies continue to sanction new projects and provide detail as to how it applies its Stewardship Statement and how it feeds into its investment decision making.

It also called on HESTA to provide details of the climate criteria against which external managers were measured.

A HESTA spokesperson told Super Review it “acknowledges receipt of the letter from EDO and is considering it.”

Greenwashing action has been a top regulatory priority in the last 12 months, including among superannuation funds. In March, the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) commenced civil penalty proceedings against Mercer Super for allegedly making misleading statements about the sustainable nature of its investment options.

Future Super also received an infringement notice from ASIC over alleged greenwashing for a Facebook post that may have been false or misleading by overstating the positive environmental impact of the fund.