Future Super pays $13,000 ASIC fine over Facebook post that ‘overstated’ its green impact

Sustainability focused superannuation fund Future Super has become the latest Australian company to be handed a fine by the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) for so-called ‘greenwashing’, as the corporate watchdog continues its efforts to clamp down on those misrepresenting their green credentials. 

Australian regulators are increasingly focused on the practice, which occurs when a company inaccurately represents a financial product, investment strategy or a business’s operations as environmentally friendly, sustainable or ethical in a bid to influence consumers. 

Energy company Tlou was fined $53,000 by ASIC in October 2022 in relation to what ASIC said were false or misleading sustainability-related statements made to the Australian Securities Exchange the year before, and in February this year, ASIC commenced legal proceedings against Mercer Super. 

In the Future Super case, ASIC has issued a $13,000 infringement notice over a four-year-old Facebook post that the regulator said “may have been false or misleading by overstating the positive environmental impact” of the Future Super Fund. 

According to ASIC, the post from Future Super in May 2019 included the statement: “Naysayers don’t join together and move nearly $400 million out of fossil fuels”. 

At the time, however, Future Super, which was established in 2014, had approximately $400 million in...