Legal & General has already invested over £6.5bn ($10.2bn) of its £15bn target for UK housing and infrastructure. Now, said CEO Nigel Wilson, "We want to make direct investments into renewable energy sources."
In "Nigel's blog" on the insurance company's website, Wilson stressed, "We always aim to put environmental and social governance at the heart of our property investments."
He added, "We must ensure that global temperatures don't rise by two degrees Celsius over historic 1880 levels. So it's essential that the UK moves towards renewable energy sources in the next five years. Last year, renewables accounted for only 6% of UK energy generation."
Legal & General as the UK's largest investor believes that the companies it invests in can be more successful if they adopt low-carbon policies, explained Wilson, and he said, "We are engaging with them actively on this topic."
He added that the UK has some of the best environmental conditions for renewable energy in the world, with strong wind, solar, tidal and wave resources: "We intend to continue investing in renewable energy, despite government announcements that they are considering ending subsidies to wind and solar energy."
