"Shareholders, as company owners, give companies their mandate to operate. Consequently, what companies do, they do in their shareholders' names. Investment therefore signals endorsement and entails responsibility."

If you have a pension, the money you pay into your pension each month is invested by fund managers on your behalf in large UK and multinational companies.

Many workers in the UK have had their rights ignored and their attempts to unionise suppressed. Elsewhere people are fighting against mining companies who are contaminating their land and water, evicting communities and using the military to suppress their protests; while other major corporations are supplying weapons to oppressive regimes or using child labour in their supply chain. Pension funds are often shareholders in these companies and others with harmful environmental and human rights practices. Most pension funds, including some with "ethical investment" options, make no effort to use their power as shareholders to challenge the companies they invest in.

The quickest way to take action is to contact your pension fund to request that they implement a Responsible Investment policy.

> Find out other ways to be an active pension fund investor