For Steven Meier, chief investment officer of the New York City public pension funds, finding alignment – particularly regarding ESG – among the trustees of the five pension plans he manages, is one of the key challenges he faces.

The trustees of the five New York City public pension plans diverge in their attitudes to ESG, and one of the key challenges Meier faces is “finding consistency of thought” among these trustees, Meier said this week.

Meier’s office manages the New York City Employees Retirement System ($85.3 billion in assets, according to affiliate title Private Equity International’s database), the Teachers Retirement System of the City of New York ($104.3 billion), the New York City Police Pension Fund ($53.1 billion), the New York City Fire Pension Fund ($20.2 billion) and the New York City Board of Education Retirement System ($9.3 billion).

“Fire and Police [plans] are not nearly such strong supporters of climate change,” Meier told Andy Thompson, senior editor of affiliate title Private Debt Investor, at PDI’s New York forum. “They’re very focused on the returns in their portfolios. And there are some social [sustainability issues] within their portfolios that they prefer not to engage in.

“The folks that are trustees of these plans are firefighters and police officers. I remember one of the trustees from the policemen’s fund came up to me, put his leg on the table and said, ‘We’re different [than the trustees of other plans]. We carry guns.’ He showed me his ankle-holster gun.”

On the other hand, Meier added, “we have some plans that have actually divested from fossil fuels”. NYCERS, BERS and TRS have divested from companies that own fossil fuel reserves, according to the Office of the NYC Comptroller, which administers the New York City pensions. These three pension plans have set net-zero 2040 goals and “are asking their private markets managers to exclude prospective upstream fossil fuel investments”, the Comptroller’s website states.

Read more @newprivatemarkets