Five years of the Investment Builder

94,000 members have Investment Builder pots. That’s almost half of the members that build a USS pension, and more than ever before.

It could be that more members want to boost their future income with savings that you can take flexibly from age 55 or because you want to be able to choose the investments that fit with your own values or play more of an active role in investment decisions. It could even be because the employer subsidy on most Investment Builder funds means more of the contributions you make goes towards your future income.

If you earn above the salary threshold, have transferred funds from another scheme since October 2016 (including switching any Money Purchase AVCs from Prudential), and/or make additional contributions, you’ll have an Investment Builder pot.

Returns across all the funds has been positive, since we launched the Investment Builder. The USS Growth Fund – the largest fund in the Investment Builder, with assets of more than £900m – has achieved an average growth rate of 9.1% a year over five years.

During the same time, the USS Moderate Growth Fund and USS Cautious Growth Fund returned average rates of 7.6% and 6.0%, respectively, while the USS Ethical Growth Fund (12.4%), USS Ethical Moderate Growth Fund (9.5%) and USS Ethical Cautious Growth Fund (7.2%) all saw positive returns.

You can find more detail on the performance of these and the other funds you can choose from in the investment section of My USS.

How our investments impact the wider environment is a huge concern for us, and we’re determined to reach Net Zero by 2050. This means we want the greenhouse gas emissions our investments produce to reduce to zero or to be offset by removing emissions from the atmosphere.

We’ve been working for some time on how we measure our exposure to climate change, and how we work with our peers to encourage companies and policy makers to transition to a low carbon future. Learn more about our plan to be Net Zero by 2050.

We’ve grown our investment in renewable technologies to more than £1.7bn across the Retirement Income Builder and Investment Builder.

We strive to put your cash into innovative companies that are proactively bringing products to the market that address the critical needs of the world around us – like climate change – whilst generating positive returns on our investment.

Check out the investment section of My USS to find out more about the ethical options you have in the Investment Builder.

Our whole portfolio includes £4bn invested in property, like supermarkets, nurseries, hotels, industrial estates, residential property, offices and much more. Over the past three years, we’ve added property to the Investment Builder as part of our move to deliver the benefit of Illiquids – or Private Market assets.

On the larger properties that we’ve owned for 10 years or more, like offices and shopping centres, we’ve reduced energy consumption by more than 40%. On top of that, 97% of the energy used in the properties we own is certified as coming from renewable sources.