The fossil fuel industry is under scrutiny as global allocators of capital look for ways to exert their influence over carbon emissions and other factors that are believed to contribute to climate change. Calls for asset managers to reassess existing and future commitments to coal-fired electricity projects are also gaining momentum, as global leaders prepare for the 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP26) that will take place in Scotland later this year. Against this backdrop, Sanlam Investments chose climate change as the core focus during the second of three Critical Conversations scheduled for the year.

There are plenty of painful similarities between your client’s retirement savings arrangements and the ill-fated maiden voyage of the Titanic. The journeys, one an Atlantic ocean crossing and the other a four-decade-decade long bumble to retirement, flash by at breakneck speed. Both the captain of the cruise liner and your client valiantly cling to their respective vessels, a ship and a retirement plan respectively, long after the evidence demands that they let go… And if South Africa’s oft-reported retirement savings outcomes are anything to go by, then your client’s savings plan, just like the Titanic, may be doomed to a watery grave.