With big investment comes big responsibility

This is a story about the future - yours and ours. How we power it, how we invest in it, how we protect it.

Energy. It's quite the modequandary.

How do we make the switch from dirty fuel to clean energy?

Switch the lights off. Buy an electric car. Get solar panels for your home.

What else? Sustainable investment, that's what.

Like our investment in Hornsea One windfarm. With the help of the Aviva Investors infrastructure team, Aviva provided £400 million of financing in 2018 to help fund its construction.

Hornsea One is incredible. The largest offshore windfarm in the world, it powers over one million homes with green electricity.

You'll find it off the Yorkshire coast, spanning an area five times the size of the city of Hull. Its 7 MW (megawatt) wind turbines are each a gargantuan 190 metres tall.

It's easy to feel good about sustainable investments. Investments that fuel a better tomorrow. Investments that support global clean energy ambitions.

There is also the obvious benefit long-term, clean energy independence would bring.

But where do you get £400 million?

A lot of the money Aviva invests comes from our insured pension scheme members.

Bulk Purchase Annuities (BPAs) alone bring in billions.

These billions don't belong to us. Our job is to use customers' money to provide them an income in retirement. To do that, we invest.

Let's invest the cash sustainably, we cry. Let's do it today! Green energy, green transport, green buildings… And what a privilege to be able to help make the world a better place.

But let's not get giddy: with big investment comes big responsibility.

Can you have it all?

We have a responsibility to our shareholders to keep growing our business profitably.

We have a responsibility to our customers - like all those people who pay into BPAs. We must remain financially strong so we can keep our promise to pay them an income when they retire.

That's the great thing about sustainable investments, like Hornsea One. Once niche, sustainable investment is now a growing market. After all, not decarbonising is not an option for our planet.

Clean energy is the future.

That means, as part of a balanced investment approach, increasingly you don't have to sacrifice financial retufor the greater good.

You can have it all.

So remember…

Next time you switch off a light or ponder an electric car, remember there's more you can do. Think about where your pension is invested, too.

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Aviva plc published this content on 05 August 2022 and is solely responsible for the information contained therein. Distributed by Public, unedited and unaltered, on 05 August 2022 14:30:33 UTC.