By Gareth Mostyn – Chief Executive, Church Commissioners for England.

This opinion piece by Alan Smith, the Church of England's First Church Estates Commissioner, was originally published in the Daily Telegraph on 14 January, 2025.    

A global coalition of investors representing approximately USD 2.5 trillion in assets under management is urging governments to take ambitious policy and regulatory action to halt and reverse global biodiversity loss. 

The Church of England’s National Church Institutions have taken ownership of the Parish Giving Scheme (PGS), a free giving service that allows parishioners to donate to their church, with 100% of each donation going to the beneficiary.

The Church of England Pensions Board has won the ‘Engagement and Stewardship Champion’ category at the inaugural Institutional Investor Recognition Awards.

For 2,000 years Christians have shared the gospel around the world, as Jesus commissioned his disciples to do, and will continue to do so

The report follows an interim announcement in June 2022, which reported for the first time, and with great dismay, that the Church Commissioners’ endowment had historic links to transatlantic chattel slavery*

The Church of England Pensions Board’s Laura Hillis, Director of Climate and Environment, has been elected to the board of the Institutional Investors Group on Climate Change (IIGCC).

The Church Commissioners for England and the Church of England Pensions Board, representing £8.7 billion and £2.8 billion assets under management respectively, today joined the Council on Ethics of the Swedish National Pension Funds and other major investors in making clear expectations for Big Tech companies with regards to human rights.

The Church Commissioners for England has published its 2023 Stewardship Report, outlining the key steps taken to deliver on its responsible investment strategy focused on ‘Respect for People and Respect for the Planet'.