Site map

USS is fifty years young. Learn more about our history on our dedicated page.

Our journey to net zero

Learn more about our net zero ambition and the progress we’re making

How will we do it?

To support our net zero ambition we will:

  • Encourage the companies we invest in to transition towards a low-carbon world
  • Reduce the emissions intensity of our investment portfolio over time
  • Invest in assets that support the transition towards a low-carbon world, like renewables and clean technology

Society can’t divest its way to net zero and neither can we. We’ll encourage the companies we invest in to transition to net zero, rather than just divest from them. Divestment makes no difference to the carbon emitted to the atmosphere and will not address the climate challenge – engagement and active stewardship of our assets can make a difference. We’d rather be an investor with a seat at the table.

For more on our approach and detail on our progress, see our TCFD Report. The Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD) helps companies and investors understand their financial exposure to climate risk.

Our highlights

  • May 2021: We announced our ambition for our investments to be net zero by 2050, if not before. This is in line with the Paris Agreement – a legally binding international treaty on climate change – and the UK government’s net zero commitment.
  • February 2022: We set our interim targets to cut the emissions intensity of our non-sovereign DB assets by 25% by 2025, and by 50% by 2030.
  • May 2022: We introduced a new climate tilt – a carbon reducing investment benchmark – to a large slice of our equity investments in the Retirement Income Builder (the defined benefit part) and the Investment Builder (the defined contribution part). This will impact over £5bn of our investments and initially reduced emissions by at least 30%, and then by 7% each following year.
  • May 2023: We adopted a Responsible Investment Beliefs and Ambition Statement which acknowledges the systemic risks that climate change presents, that we can’t diversify our way out of these, and that integrating responsible investment across all our asset classes will lead to better financial outcomes for members.
  • September 2023: Working with the University of Exeter, we developed four new decision-useful climate scenarios that better reflect the real-world risks and opportunities that will frame our investment decision-making.
  • December 2024: The emissions intensity of our investments reduced from just over 70 tCO2e per £million to 44 tCO2e per £million. We are now 51% lower than our 2019 baseline and ahead of our 2025 interim target. Emissions intensity is the amount of carbon dioxide and equivalents emitted per million pounds of our investments and is very sensitive to market moves – therefore, we’re not complacent and we know this journey won’t be a linear one.
  • March 2025: We had around £2bn of renewable energy and clean technology investments. This includes a 50% stake in Bruc Energy, which runs solar farms across Spain.
  • July 2025: We published our updated climate scenario analysis to inform our investment decision making and better reflect real-world risks and opportunities. We’ve been working with the University of Exeter to increase our understanding of the investment risks and opportunities associated with the transition to net zero. This work involves assessing possible future climate scenarios, as well as physical risk and transition risk.

Reaching net zero will be an ongoing journey – to achieve our targets, we need to reduce our emissions intensity by between 4.7% and 6.1% a year from our 2019 start point. While we were ahead of our interim target by December 2024, this progress has not been matched by real-world emissions, which continue to rise. More needs to be done to slow down or reverse the rise in global temperatures. Read our thoughts in our latest blog.

Your questions

Document downloads

If you're looking for archived reports that are no longer in use, you can find these on our archived responsible investment material page.