London, March 17th, 2026 – Smart Pension, one of the UK’s leading workplace pension providers, has published a comprehensive human capital assessment across its equity portfolio. The breakthrough analysis sets a new standard within the industry. The analysis was conducted in partnership with Denominator, the leading provider of social and human capital data. Serving institutional investors, financial institutions, and corporates, Denominator offers data-driven insight into portfolio performance, resilience, and long-term value creation beyond what traditional financial metrics alone can capture.
Drawing on Denominator’s global database of more than 10 million companies and 1,800 data points, the analysis evaluates leadership composition, workforce practices, employee turnover, pay gaps, and organizational policies, benchmarked against peers. The framework builds on Denominator’s extensive work with Nordic pension funds, where its most recent report covered 38,000 equity investments worth USD 3 trillion across 25 asset owners, including Danica, AkademikerPension, PFA, Ilmarinen, AP2, and Norway’s Government Pension Fund Global.
Key highlights
- 99% of portfolio companies have one or more women on the board of directors. For the executive management, the figure is 88%.
- Sectors with lowest exposure to poor employee turnover rate include Utilities, Technology, and Industrial Goods. Sectors with highest exposure include Business/Consumer Services, Basic Materials/Resources, and Transportation/Logistics.
- The analysis covers the public equities in the Smart Sustainable Growth Fund which was approximately GBP 4.4 billion in assets as of March 31, 2025. Public equities accounted for 80% of the fund at the time of reporting, spanning 1,751 holdings across 51 countries and 66 industries.
“Denominator’s analysis on human capital within the companies in our portfolio offers valuable insight into long-term sustainability and governance practices. This data can be an indicator of a company's risk management and resilience. We look forward to using these insights to empower us to engage more effectively and drive meaningful change.”
– Fiona Smith, Head of Responsible Investment at Smart Pension
From insight to action: Diagnosing risks and opportunities
In today’s post-industrial economy, where intangible assets increasingly drive corporate value, human capital is a critical determinant of long-term performance. While climate and biodiversity risks are now widely embedded in investment frameworks, human capital assessment remains comparatively underdeveloped. This is even though CEOs routinely describe employees as a company’s greatest asset, highlighting a persistent gap between how businesses articulate value creation and how investors assess it across portfolio companies and supply chains.
For Smart Pension, delivering long-term value for members is a core objective – and human capital plays a central role in achieving this. The analysis moves the fund from limited visibility to detailed insight, both at the portfolio-level and across best- and worst-performing holdings.
The insight empowers Smart Pension to
- Apply a diagnostic approach to risk management, resilience, and long-term value.
- Strengthen voting policies, including considerations beyond the board of directors to the executive management, workforce dynamics, and organizational practices.
- Prioritise stewardship priorities and targeted engagement with portfolio companies and with asset managers responsible for investment and voting decisions.
“Our collaboration with Smart Pension shows how human capital intelligence can power more informed, responsible, and resilient investment strategies. Portfolio-wide visibility into people-related risks and opportunities enables asset owners to act with greater confidence and consistency.” – Anders Rodenberg, CEO of Denominator.
The findings are published across two complementary reports: an asset owner perspective, focused on how human capital data can strengthen decision-making and active ownership, and a data provider perspective, highlighting the underlying results for risks and opportunities. Together, the reports demonstrate transparency, proactive risk management, and leadership in responsible investment – establishing a foundation for a UK-wide human capital benchmark.
Open invitation to creating UK’s first industry benchmark
This publication marks the first step toward creating the UK’s first industry benchmark for human capital performance. Building on Denominator’s experience with Nordic pension funds, the benchmark will establish a shared baseline for UK asset owners to better understand performance, strengthen engagement, and track progress over time.
“Evaluating the human capital value in underlying investments can be a challenge for UK pension funds. Therefore, the starting point needs to include a baseline assessment so that any improvements from strategy changes can be benchmarked”.
– Karen Shackleton, Director and chair of the board at Pensions for Purpose
Following Smart Pension’s example and support from Pensions for Purpose, Denominator is inviting UK pension funds to participate by sharing their equity portfolio. Results will be anonymised, as the objective is not to rank funds, but to create a shared standard and baseline for benchmarking and progress. There is no cost to participate, and asset owners will be offered detailed insights into their own portfolio.
For more information or to participate, please contact Denominator.
END –
.jpg)
