Environment Agency pension fund criticised for owning stakes in UK water firms

theguardian.com:

The Environment Agency’s pension fund owns stakes in a string of British water firms – despite the watchdog calling for industry bosses to be jailed over shocking pollution levels, the Guardian can reveal.

An analysis of the Environment Agency Pension Fund’s investments shows it holds shares or bonds worth £28m in six of the largest water companies.

Emma Howard Boyd, the chair of the EA, last month called for chief executives and board members to be jailed if they oversee serious, repeated pollution because they seemed undeterred by enforcement action and court fines for breaching environmental laws.

The EA found that seven water firms oversaw an increase in serious incidents last year compared with 2020, with 62 serious incidents of pollution for 2021 – the highest since 2013.

Filings for the year to 31 March 2022 show the fund has ploughed more than £3m into Southern Water, which the agency last month said had the highest total pollution rate in 2021. Southern was fined a record £90m in July last year after deliberately dumping billions of litres of raw sewage into protected seas, in a prosecution brought by the Environment Agency.

The fund’s largest water holding is in Thames Water, putting £12.8m behind the supplier, which dumped raw sewage into rivers 5,028 times in 2021.

The investor, which manages the pensions of retired and current staff at the government agency, has also put funds behind United Utilities, Severn Trent, Yorkshire Water and Anglian Water. Anglian last month handed its chief executive Peter Simpson more than £1m in pay and bonuses despite its poor pollution record.

When asked about the investments, former Undertones frontman Feargal Sharkey, who now campaigns on water issues said: “This yet again proves