About half an hour of a heated election debate has passed when Lene Dammand Lund turns up the intensity in the high-ceilinged room with its fashionable plank floors:
“At this point, I have to address the elephant in the room,” says the 59-year-old architect, who is rector of the Royal Danish Academy and acting chairman of the board of the Pensionskassen for Arkitekter og Designere.
The organiser of the election debate is the Pensionskassen for Arkitekter og Designere, where a power struggle has been going on for a few years and which is currently holding an election campaign where skeletons are increasingly coming out of the closet.
Lene Dammand Lund points to her two younger opponents, Rikke Rohr and Esther Ellingsen, who sit on either side of her, and calls them “a faction” working against the board with false accusations.
The two opposing candidates immediately respond by shaking their heads and trying to interrupt, but Lene Dammand Lund continues:
“Accusations that the board is black and that the board does not want transparency. These are spin and misinformation that have no basis in reality.”
A major squabble then unfolds, with the opposing candidates refusing to be called a faction, among other things.
“We are merely members who for several years have supported a member proposal for more ambitious climate goals that have neither been listened to nor implemented,” says Esther Ellingsen, architect and DGNB consultant at ERIK Arkitekter.
Pensionskassen for Arkitekter og Designere (PAD) is one of the country’s smallest pension funds.
But the internal disputes could have considerable consequences for Sampension, to which PAD belongs and which is one of the largest in the country.
Currently, board members and ordinary members criticise each other for climate hesitation and manipulation of numbers.
This takes place in heated debates on social media platforms such as LinkedIn.
At the centre of the conflict is a membership proposal that is gaining more and more support.
The proposers are dissatisfied with Sampension’s climate goals and transparency.
They therefore want an independent comparison of Sampension with its competitors in the climate area.
The proposal has been passed at the last two general meetings, but it has never been implemented as a majority of the board is against it.
As in many other pension funds, adopted member proposals only serve as recommendations to the PAD board of directors.
Current board member Mads Gudmand-Høyer is one of the proposal’s standard-bearers.
He is particularly critical of the lack of transparency in Sampension.
“Major parts of the investments have not been made public. This does not match a member-owned pension company in 2023. As members, we should be able to see for ourselves what we are invested in. For example, we should be able to check 100 percent if we invest in oil companies that lobby against the Paris Agreement. It is unambitious that the members’ proposal for transparency has not been better followed up on,” says Mads Gudmand-Høyer, board member of PAD and building technology consultant at The National Building Fund.
One tenth of Sampension’s investments are concealed, and this has been criticised. Read more about it here.
Due to a lack of transparency, candidates Rikke Rohr and Esther Ellingsen no longer trust Sampension and PAD.
This is what they tell us when Danwatch meets them in the King’s Garden after the election debate.
“There has been great interest in the climate agenda among the members. But when the board organised a members’ meeting prior to the last general meeting, they chose the theme of wills and inheritance. That says it all,” says Rikke Rohr, architect at Mole arkitekter, and continues:
“And when we ask the board questions in the public debate about climate change, we are either invited to closed coffee meetings or we get some homemade graphs in return. That doesn’t inspire confidence.”
This is backed up by Nicolai Bo Andersen, Professor of Sustainable Building Culture at the Royal Danish Academy.
He also supports the proposal and is unhappy with the way the PAD board has handled the members’ concerns about Sampension’s climate profile.
“At the most recent general meeting, some graphs were shown that were supposed to show that PAD is doing well in the climate area compared to others. But it was unclear who had conducted the study, what methodology was used and whether the figures are at all comparable,” the researcher says.
He is particularly critical of Sampension’s inclusion of real estate in the calculation of green investments on the website and in the material presented to the members at the congress.
Not all pension funds do this, and therfore Sampension cannot use the calculation in a comparison with its competitors, he points out.
“If the pension funds’ figures do not include exactly the same types of investments, it is like comparing apples to oranges. That’s why we want an independent study,” says Nicolai Bo Andersen.
Esther Ellingsen is also not comfortable with Sampension’s own interpretation of the pension fund’s fight for the climate.
Before the election debate, she found the Norwegian oil giant Equinor on PAD’s share list, and this confirms her belief that PAD’s claim to comply with the Paris Agreement is greenwashing, she says.
“Pensions are funds we save to ensure we can have a good old age. But when we invest in oil companies that invest in expanding the production of oil and thus counteract the Paris Agreement, we are gambling with our ability to have a pension on a habitable planet.”
She also finds it problematic that a large part of the investments in PAD are concealed.
According to PAD and Sampension, the reason for this is that the investments are placed in so-called structured credits, which include investments in loans to companies and which are subject to confidentiality.
But she’s not satisfied with that explanation.
“About 12 percent of our savings are in structured credits, and therefore the investments should be confidential, the argument goes. But when members want more transparency, you can simply reduce the share of this type of investment.”
Sampension tells Danwatch that the company conceals structured credits for competitive reasons.
However, Sampension also states that it is not bound by confidentiality clauses and that it is the company’s own choice to conceal the investments.
Lene Dammand Lund does not want to be interviewed. But at the election debate, she made it clear that Sampension is doing well in the climate area compared to other pension funds.
And that she doesn’t believe that alternatives such as AkademikerPension offer a more aggressive climate profile.
Sampension has sent a response in which they refer to the Board of Directors’ statement to PAD’s most recent general meeting.
Here, the board argues that Sampension has an objective market overview prepared that shows that Sampension performs as well as or better than other pension funds in terms of total carbon footprint, green investments and exclusion of fossil fuel companies, among other things.
However, Rikke Rohr and Esther Ellingsen think this is incorrect.
The current board says they have the same level of transparency as other pension funds. They have concealed some of the portfolio for competitive reasons, but PAD’s overall carbon footprint is fine compared to competitors, they say. Why don’t you just trust it?
“When they don’t even know if they can include their real estate as sustainable investments, I don’t trust them to be able to assess whether they are transparent, sustainable or good at communicating with their members. The trust is gone,” says Rikke Rohr.
Ester Ellingsen agrees.
She adds that she is confident that the board “is ready to look ahead and collaborate across generations on our pension management.”
It appears from the minutes of the latest general meeting that a number of dissatisfied members want to transfer to AkademikerPension. And that the possibility has been discussed at meetings between AkademikerPension and members of PAD.
You were articulated as a faction that wants to join AkademikerPension for the election debate. Is there something to it?
“The reason why we members are looking into the possibilities of transferring to another pension fund is because the board and Sampension are not taking our concerns seriously. We need to be where it makes the most sense for us,” says Rikke Rohr.
But you’re not answering the question. Do you want to join AkademikerPension?
“AkademikerPension has done what I wish PAD would have done a long time ago. They have anticipated the future and moved ambitiously on the green transition. PAD, on the other hand, has been satisfied with being average. So if those who have made positive progress want to play with us, I think we should seriously consider it.”
31/5: The article has been updated with a written response from Sampension.
Emilie Ekeberg
