ABOUT HESTA
The Health Employees Superannuation Trust Australia (HESTA) is a major industry superannuation fund with $55.1 billion in assets and 890,949 member accounts as of June 2020.
The default HESTA MySuper option, Balanced Growth, is the sixth largest MySuper product in Australia by value, managing $41.2 billion and 732,304 member accounts
KEY FINDINGS
HESTA should expand the Sustainable Growth option’s 0% threshold nuclear weapons exclusion policy across the entire fund, fully disclose all holdings, and divest from all current nuclear weapons holdings.
Policy
HESTA does not have an adequate policy on nuclear weapon exclusion.
HESTA’s fund-wide policy is to allow investments in companies that derive up to 5% of revenue from the manufacture of whole weapon systems or components developed for exclusive use in nuclear weapons.
Only the Sustainable Growth investment option completely excludes nuclear weapons producers.
Holdings
Shareholder voting records indicate that in the 2020/21 financial year, HESTA held shares in 14 nuclear weapons producers.
Read our detailed assessment of HESTA’s policy and practice in our 2021 report