Fund factsheets
Access information about our range of funds
Award winning investments
Our investments help our members’ pension savings grow whilst also doing the right thing for the world around us
We offer a range of funds and investment options
We offer choices for everyone. The “we do it for you” option, which has three sustainable investment strategies, depending on how sustainable you want your investments to be. We’ll choose one for you if you don’t make a choice. Alternatively, there are up to 18 investment funds members can choose from – perfect if they would rather manage their own pension savings and investment journey to retirement.
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Investment funds and downloads
Download fund factsheets and other investment-related documents and find out how our investment funds have performed.
Awards and achievements
Understanding pension volatility
Various events can cause investments to go down and up, including global pandemics, changes in government or central bank policies, war and crises, changes in the demand and supply of certain products, and much more. While we can’t control the impact of short-term changes in financial markets, our investment options are all designed to help our members’ pensions grow steadily over the long term. The default growth fund is invested in a wide range of companies and countries, so all your eggs aren’t in one basket and you’re protected by the investment risk being widely spread.
Our investment approach
Sustainability
We select funds with the aim of generating positive social and environmental outcomes alongside financial returns, and reducing negative impact through engagement and exclusion.
Innovative partnerships
We work with some of the industry’s best-known investment managers to build innovative, market leading solutions, with the aim of providing strong investment returns over the long term.
Harnessing technology
Our technology capabilities are unique and mean we can charge less for managing money, so our members’ pension savings have even more opportunities to grow.
Sustainability
Our fund range takes into consideration the long-term impact of investments to strive for sustainable outcomes
We offer funds with strong Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) practices which are working to reduce their carbon emissions. The pension scheme is run by a ‘Trustee’ which consists of five Board members and is supported by Smart Pension’s in-house specialist teams and external advisers. Our Trustee has policies and processes in place (found here) to avoid harmful business practices, and to engage with fund managers with the aim of improving their practices. The majority of our fund range has strong ESG integration within the investment process*.
Providing solutions to the world's challenges
Our default ‘we do it for you’ investment strategy goes further, investing in funds and financing projects that are not only improving their own practices but also providing solutions to the world’s challenges, as well as offering the potential for strong financial returns for our members. These solutions include renewable energy and new agricultural systems which reduce water waste. The majority of our members are in our default investment strategy, with allocations to investments that are helping to create positive change in the world.
*Currently the only funds without ESG integration are the Smart Sharia Fund and the Smart Index-Linked Gilts Fund. Given the investments in these asset classes, it is difficult to fully assess or limit investments to certain ESG criteria.
The main fund in our default investment strategy aims to be net zero by 2040
Net zero means the greenhouse gases emitted from the investments made by the fund are balanced out by the removal of greenhouse gases from the atmosphere. We have set ourselves interim targets on our net zero journey and we are also taking action to reduce nature loss by addressing biodiversity loss and engaging with our managers and companies to prevent commodity-driven deforestation.
Voting and engagement
To build a better world, our sustainability approach recognises the need to take credible actions and facilitate engagement as far as we can, without simply excluding all offenders or using carbon offsets. While some exclusions may apply, mainly in the case of the worst of the worst offenders where we don’t see potential for improvement, we focus on encouraging companies to transition to a lower carbon footprint, have less negative impact on nature and improve their practices, such as diversity, equity and inclusion. We believe we can make a real difference through stewardship and engagements.
More on stewardship, voting and engagement Innovative partnerships
We’ve opened up the benefits of investing in private markets, also known as ‘illiquids’, to our members, through our Smart Sustainable Growth Fund. Our allocation to private markets is part of a longer-term strategy to develop and diversify the default investment strategy, because we believe that investing in private markets has the potential to increase returns and lower risk for members.
The Smart Sustainable Growth Fund has a 70% allocation to an index of global companies which aims to be net zero by 2040, in line with our target. The allocation uses split voting technology from Minerva Analytics which gives us more control and governance around the voting activities of the managers for companies held within the fund. This means we have even more influence over the changes companies can carry out to make a difference – lowering their carbon emissions, reducing harmful waste and improving their overall sustainability processes.
Harnessing technology
We utilise a retirement technology platform, Keystone by Smart. This is a global technology platform, allowing Smart Pension to benefit from innovation across the globe to bring the best possible pension technology to savers, employers and advisers. Over one million members use Smart Pension in the UK, accessing it via the web, mobile devices, and even via Amazon Alexa or Google Home, all enabled by our technology platform.
Our in-house technology means our administration fees are low. This gives us more scope to innovate in our investments. Being open to new investment approaches, such as private markets and biodiversity solutions, is critical to maximising what can be achieved.
Ensuring that people have adequate retirement savings is one of the world’s largest problems. Providing greater opportunity to working people and their families today and throughout their lives is a key aspect of our work.
Transparent and accountable investments
We partner with several industry groups to help us create robust frameworks, so that we can collaborate and engage with managers and companies on a bigger scale.
We are a member of the Institutional Investors Group on Climate Change (IIGCC) for investor collaboration on climate change.
We are adopters of the Impact Investing Institute principles to monitor that our impact investments generate positive, measurable social and environmental impact alongside a financial return.
We are members of the Pensions for Purpose Investors Adoption Forum, set up to encourage more pension funds to invest with a positive social and environmental impact.
We are a supporter of the Climate Action 100+ investor initiative, an initiative to ensure the world’s largest corporate greenhouse gas emitters take necessary action on climate change.
We are an investor participant in Nature Action 100, where we engage companies as part of engagement teams, with a focus on both ambition and action to reverse nature and biodiversity loss.
We are a member of the ShareAction movement, a non-profits charity which works with investors to raise standards for responsible investment and submit clear requests to companies on issues.
We are a member of the Diversity Project, a cross-company initiative championing diversity and inclusion in the UK investment and savings industry to deliver the best financial outcomes for our members and reflect society.
We publish our approach and activity in our:
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