![\"Aussies](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/screenshot-2026-06-03-at-70357-am_3408.png\")
Aussies are being urged to netter understand what’s in their retirement savings. \u00b7 Getty <\/p>\n Aussies are being urged to netter understand what’s in their retirement savings. \u00b7 Getty <\/p>\n
Aussie workers are being urged to check their superannuation<\/a> fund and better understand what they\u2019re retirement savings are being invested in<\/a>. From today, a new tool allows Aussies to easily assess if they\u2019re mandated salary contributions are unwittingly funding industries they might deem unethical.<\/p>\n Billions of dollars in the country\u2019s more than $4 trillion superannuation sector<\/a> is being funnelled to companies linked to human rights violations, animal cruelty, environmental damage, weapons manufacturing, fossil fuels and social harm like gambling. That\u2019s the finding from analysis done by Mindful Investing which examined more than 30 major super fund options and their underlying holdings.<\/p>\n \u201cThere is a lot of trust \u2026 and people expect their money to be managed ethically and responsibly,\u201d CEO Barry Coates told Yahoo Finance, with the organisation citing research showing 84 per cent of Aussies want to avoid some of the things they are actually invested in.<\/p>\n RELATED<\/p>\n \u201cA big influence on the Australian market is the Your Future, Your Super<\/a> performance test, where super funds have to meet a benchmark standard, and that encourages a lot of super funds to sort of cling to the indexes, as they don’t want to get too far away from the index they’re going to be measured against,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u201cIn the index there’s lots of fossil fuel companies and weapons companies and gambling companies,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd that may not be what a lot of consumers want.\u201d<\/p>\n After operating in New Zealand and providing transparency tools for workers to see how their superannuation equivalent KiwiSaver is invested, Mindful Investing has today launched an online tool<\/a> urging Aussies to do a \u201c60 second test\u201d to better understand their super fund\u2019s exposure to different industries.<\/p>\n The analysis was typically able to asses about 70 to 90 per cent of the investments in each super fund portfolio.<\/p>\n \u201cAustralia’s regulated disclosure is very poor, so we’re having to work from the data that’s available \u2026 but this is a sort of a way for people to find out the key things about their funds,\u201d Coates said.<\/p>\n The analysis found the greatest level of exposure was to fossil fuels followed by human rights violations and then environmental harm.<\/p>\n While so-called ESG investing \u2013 which priorities environmental, social and governance concerns \u2013 has arguably ebbed and flowed in its popularity during investment cycles in recent years, Coates said investors shouldn\u2019t fear being ethical means getting lower returns.<\/p>\n \u201cIt’s an old fallacy that ethical returns are lower, but you know most of the research says they’re at least comparable, if not skewing on the high side,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Aussies \u2018shocked\u2019 by their super investments <\/p>\n Coates says workers should contact their superannuation funds and ask them about their asset allocation and potential alternative options if they have concerns about what they are inadvertently funding.<\/p>\n \u201cAustralians will be shocked to discover their retirement savings are contributing to harm in the world, from funding weapons being used in wars to supporting companies that violate human rights and destroy our environment,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n One of those Aussies who has previously been shocked to find she was \u201cunwittingly investing in the tobacco industry\u201d was Dr Bronwyn King AO.<\/p>\n Speaking to ABC radio on Wednesday morning, she recalled \u201cthe horrible\u201d realisation she had in 2010 when she discovered her superannuation was being invested in tobacco companies as the default option.<\/p>\n Since then, the decorated oncologist who began her career working as a doctor on a lung cancer ward in Melbourne, has been on a mission to push for tobacco divestment among super funds and disentangling the financial world from the harmful product.<\/p>\n \u201cThis has contributed to 14 Australian super funds divesting tobacco stocks worth more than one billion dollars,\u201d she wrote in a 2014 submission to Treasury. \u201cWith several billion dollars still invested in tobacco, I am committed to continuing this work.\u201d<\/p>\n It\u2019s a push she continues today with the charity Tobacco Free Portfolios.<\/p>\n Get the latest Yahoo Finance news – follow us on Facebook<\/a>, LinkedIn<\/a> and Instagram<\/a>.<\/p>\n Barry Coates and Mindful Investing have been providing the transparency analysis in New Zealand for the past 7 years. \u00b7 Barry Coates\/Facebook <\/p>\n
Dr Bronwyn King has been on a mission to eliminate tobacco companies from investment portfolios. \u00b7 Nine\/TED <\/p>\n