The fiduciary’s green thumb: reconciling fiduciary duty with sustainable investment in pension fund management

This article contends that fiduciary duty is best understood as prescriptive rather than merely proscriptive. Rejecting the orthodox view that confines fiduciary obligations to conflict and profit avoidance, it argues for a conception grounded in positive duties to act in beneficiaries’ best interests. Drawing on case law and emerging judicial trends across jurisdictions and focusing on the context of pension fund management, this new framework compels trustees to consider sustainable and responsible investment (SRI) factors, particularly where long-term risks, such as those arising from climate change, materially affect the financial and non-financial welfare of present and future beneficiaries.