Maryland State Pension Establishes Climate Advisory Panel

The $68 billion Maryland State Retirement and Pension System’s board of trustees unanimously approved a slate of nominations to its new climate advisory panel, nominations submitted by Executive Director Martin Noven and CIO Andrew Palmer.

The five-member team, which will begin meeting later in the spring, will guide the pension fund’s board of trustees through potential climate-related investment hazards, as well as investment opportunities.

The creation of the panel was borne from a 2022 state law that requires MSRPS fiduciaries to consider certain climate risks to the retirement system’s assets. The law also requires a climate risk assessment that reviews the MSRPS investment portfolio to determine the level of climate risk among sectors and asset classes. The same law also authorizes the board to set up an advisory panel of experts to analyze climate change risk “to provide the most current science and data available.” The pension fund’s board approved a governance charter in December 2024 that established the panel.

“As chair of the system’s investment committee, it is our responsibility to evaluate all risks to the pension portfolio. These risks include the consequences of extreme weather and climate change,” Maryland Comptroller Brooke Lierman said in a statement. She added that the panel “will provide the board with valuable expertise and guidance as we manage these risks for the benefit of our 415,000 members and retirees.”

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The panel includes Angelo Calvello, co-founder and chairman of the board of Rosetta Analytics; Mary Cerulli, founder of Climate Finance Action Inc.; Maria Elena Drew, director of research for responsible investing at T. Rowe Price; Douglas Lawrence, vice chair of Climate Group’s board of trustees; and Stacy Swann, founder of Resilient Earth Capital.

According to the MSRPS, the panel will receive support and resources designated by Palmer, and it will collaborate with the state’s investment division on climate projects and reports. It also said the panel will make recommendations for evaluating and monitoring climate change risk within the system’s portfolio.

“Sustainability is the keystone to all our investment decisions, and in some sense, it is made more concretely tangible when considering the impact of climate risks on assets,” Palmer said in a statement. “To that end, we are fortunate to have climate experts lending their expertise. They analyze the preservation of value through a different yet wholly necessary lens.”