Big tech and your Climate Plan: what you need to know

PensionBee's Climate Plan is designed to reduce the carbon emissions intensity of its portfolio over time, in line with the goals of the Paris Agreement. Find out how the plan selects the companies it holds.

The Climate Plan isn't a 'green companies only' fund

The Climate Plan tracks a custom MSCI index built to exceed the minimum standards of an EU Paris-Aligned Benchmark. Its objective is to reduce the portfolio's carbon emissions intensity by at least 10% per year against its parent index, using 2020 as the baseline year. 

This is a passive, Paris-Aligned, index-tracking approach, removing fossil fuels and enabling your plan to be invested in line with international climate agreements. The plan doesn’t follow an impact investing or green revenues strategy, so there isn’t an objective to demonstrate a positive impact for society and the environment alongside generating financial returns. 

Before any companies are selected for the index, a set of exclusion rules is applied. The most significant of these relates to fossil fuels. The plan excludes companies that own fossil fuel reserves, as well as companies with strong ties to fossil fuels. For example, utilities that rely heavily on fossil fuel-based power generation. 

The plan also excludes companies involved in:

• controversial, nuclear and other weapons; 
• civilian firearms; 
• tobacco; 
• gambling; 
• adult entertainment; 
• alcohol; 
• for-profit prisons; 
• palm oil;
• recreational cannabis; and
• activities that don’t comply with the United Nations Global Compact. 

It excludes companies assessed as ‘strongly misaligned’ with the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). For example, SDG 6 (clean water and sanitation) and SDG 7 (affordable and clean energy).

Once this set of exclusionary screens has been applied, the remaining companies are reweighted, to ensure the carbon emissions reduction objective. 

This sees companies with lower emissions (compared to their relative size) receive more investment compared to the parent index. And companies with higher emissions or that don’t demonstrate a commitment to a long-term reduction in line with the Paris Agreement goals will receive less investment over time. 

Why does big tech feature so prominently in the Climate Plan?

Among the Climate Plan’s top holdings are seven of the world's largest technology companies:

• Apple;
• Amazon;
• Alphabet; 
• Meta; 
• Microsoft; 
• Nvidia; and 
• Tesla. 

These large technology companies dominate the global stock markets, and the Climate Plan tracks a global index.

The Climate Plan tracks a custom MSCI index that uses the MSCI All Country World Index (ACWI) as its starting point. 

As of May 2026, Information Technology and Communication Services companies make up around 40% of MSCI ACWI. So, they feature prominently in any plan that follows this approach.

Additionally, there's a more specific reason these particular companies are overweighted. Relative to their economic footprint, they're lower-emitting parts of the global market. 

Using the latest climate emissions data publicly available, the seven largest technology companies combined account for just over 1% of total global greenhouse gas emissions. That’s despite the fact that they represent approximately 21% of the MSCI ACWI by market capitalisation, as of May 2026.

Here's how the latest data for each of these companies compares.

Source: State Street IM, MSCI, as of 03 Jun, 2026. For illustration only. According to Our World in Data, Global GHG Emissions in 2024 were 54.43 billion tons of CO2-eq.

The index uses specific emissions-based metrics to compare all the companies in the parent index against each other, rather than position any one company as a climate leader. 

On emissions-based metrics relative to size, the big technology companies score more favourably than others in the index.

They improve the overall carbon profile of the plan relative to its parent index. This is because they emit less relative to their size than many comparable companies. Some also earn a share of their revenue from products and services that support the transition to a cleaner economy, such as energy efficiency technology.

What about Artificial Intelligence and rising energy use?

Artificial Intelligence (AI) infrastructure requires significant energy. As a result, some of these companies have seen their emissions increase in recent years. There are a couple of things worth noting alongside that.

Five of the seven companies have emissions reduction targets approved by the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi). This is a globally recognised framework for setting credible, science-based climate goals. 

These companies are also among the world's largest. At that scale, their decisions on the energy they buy, the infrastructure they build, and the suppliers they work with will shape the wider energy transition. The index methodology considers both their current emissions performance and their commitment to future reduction, including whether they have science-based targets approved by SBTi. That assessment can change as their trajectories shift. 

What happens if a company's emissions rise sharply?

The plan's index is reviewed twice a year. This is to check both whether companies still pass the exclusionary screens, and whether their emissions weighting needs to change as new data comes in.

If a company's emissions rise significantly, or its progress on reducing them falls, its weighting will be reduced over time. In serious cases it could be removed from the index entirely. For example, if its business model changes in a way that brings it into conflict with the exclusionary rules.

The Climate Plan is designed to reduce the overall carbon emissions intensity of the portfolio year-on-year, regardless of what any individual company does. If the seven companies in the table above stopped being the lower-emitting option relative to their peers, the index would reduce their weighting over time. 

You can keep track of monthly changes to the plan's top 10 holdings in your online account (‘BeeHive’). Or you can download the full monthly holdings list directly from the money manager, State Street, via their website.

What if I want a pension that excludes technology companies entirely?

Removing all large technology companies from a pension would mean investing outside the major global indices. Typically, that’d be through a specialist actively managed fund or an impact-focused fund.

These plans usually hold only 30-35 companies, carry a significantly different risk profile, and tend to be considerably more expensive than mainstream index-tracking pensions. At PensionBee, we believe investments should be diversified, low-cost, and simple to understand. We're customer-led, and our plans are designed for a wide range of savers.

Have a question? Get in touch!

If you have questions about the Climate Plan or want to understand more about how it works, you can read the full plan details or email us at engagement@pensionbee.com.

Risk warning

As always with investments, your capital is at risk. The value of your investment can go down as well as up, and you may get back less than you invest. This information should not be regarded as financial advice.