PROTESTERS gathered outside the council's headquarters yesterday to keep pressure on demands to clean up the investment portfolio of the Strathclyde Pension Fund.

The controversial retirement pot was inherited by the council from the now-defunct Strathclyde Regional Authority and retains valuable stakes in polluting firms.

It has pledged to divest funds from fossil fuel companies in which it holds shares, such as Shell and BP, but demonstrators who gathered in the city centre on Monday said it is not doing enough. 

Supporters of Friends of the Earth Scotland and Divest Strathclyde massed outside the City Chambers and said there were a number of issues with an update given to a council committee that manages the fund.

Ric Lander, of Friends of the Earth Scotland, said: “Fund members, community activists and the city council have demanded the Strathclyde Pension Fund come up with a plan to divest from disastrous fossil fuel companies. Now it seems they’ve instead come up with a plan to carry on with business as usual."

Glasgow councillors recently backed a motion calling on the Fund to take money out of fossil fuel firms.

But a document to be read by councillors on Wednesday - the last time the Pension Fund committee will meet before COP26 - has caused controversy. 

Activists claim it makes it too easy for the Fund's managers to retain investments in polluting firms and sets no definitive timescales for action. 

Mr Lander added: "When the Pension Fund Committee scrutinises this proposal on Wednesday they should ask how the policy can be turned into something effective and meaningful, a contribution to climate action that Glasgow could be proud of.”

Isla Scott, of Divest Strathclyde said: "After years of the policy of ‘engagement’ practised by the Fund, it is clear that this has made very little if any difference to the fossil fuel companies, who are even now planning to maximise the production of oil and gas in many places around the world while greenwashing their continued pollution and lobbying governments to prevent climate action."

A spokesman for Strathclyde Pension Fund said: “It’s welcome that campaigners recognise that our direct investments in industries like oil and gas are already decreasing. They are also dwarfed by our investments in clean, renewable energy.

“Meanwhile, the fund’s exposure to oil and gas is less than half of what it was just five years ago, in terms of a percentage of our passive equity - and closing in on a two-thirds reduction in terms of the overall value of the fund.

“Strathclyde Pension Fund is one of the first large pension funds to approve divestment as a tool to address firms that do not engage with the climate crisis.”