Fwd: [Just Water Futures] Webinar Alert! Friday April 24, 2026

[Madeline Kiser]

Good morning, all --

We hope this note finds you holding up and nurtured in this time.   We're writing to share word of this webinar, "Water, Farmland, Housing: the Growing Appetites of Pension Fund Capitalism."

The webinar "will examine the emergence of a new and powerful stratum of pension fund investors that, no longer content to passively collect coupon interest and stock dividends, have moved hundreds of billions into direct, private equity style investing in some of the most ecologically sensitive and socially contested sectors in the world. Newer private market ownership models allow pension funds to seize opportunities to take over the key components of daily survival - water, arable land, and housing. In 2012, the Economist magazine referred to the Canadian entrants into this world, and their appetite for the UK’s privatized water companies, airports, and rail operations as the ‘new masters of the universe’."

Please feel free to share with your networks.

In Solidarity, 

Madeline and Oscar/Living Rivers Movement, Costa Rica

---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: JustWaterFutures via Just Water Futures <just-water-futures+justw...@gaggle.email>
Date: Sun, Apr 19, 2026 at 1:39 PM
Subject: [Just Water Futures] Webinar Alert! Friday April 24, 2026
To: Just Water Futures <just-wate...@gaggle.email>

Hello Everyone, 

We are happy to share our upcoming webinar this Friday, April 24, 2026 at 8:00 am EST / 1:00 UK time. 

Kevin Skerrett is our keynote speaker for the event. He is an Adjunct Research Professor at Carleton University’s Institute of Political Economy. He has published both popular and academic material on pensions, including as co-editor ofThe Contradictions of Pension Fund Capitalism(Cornell University Press, 2018). Kevin worked as a Senior Research Officer for CUPE for nearly 30 years, primarily assigned to pension policy, collective bargaining, membership education and governance support work. He is currently the Director of the Financialization Research Lab at Carleton University.

The discussion will present a critical analysis of ‘pension fund capitalism’ - its emergence and resistance.

Large pension funds from just seven global North countries have become enormous financial investors in their own right. A critical analysis of ‘pension fund capitalism’ has emerged alongside these actors, underlining various contradictory relationships. On one hand, the financial operations of dispossession and extraction of large pension fund investors is generating social resistance. On the other hand, neoliberalism continues to channel the worker struggles for a decent retirement income into predatory private finance.

Kevin will examine the emergence of a new and powerful stratum of pension fund investors that, no longer content to passively collect coupon interest and stock dividends, have moved hundreds of billions into direct, private equity style investing in some of the most ecologically sensitive and socially contested sectors in the world. Newer private market ownership models allow pension funds to seize opportunities to take over the key components of daily survival - water, arable land, and housing. In 2012, the Economist magazine referred to the Canadian entrants into this world, and their appetite for the UK’s privatized water companies, airports, and rail operations as the ‘new masters of the universe’. Earlier hopes that pension fund actors may represent a more green, humane, and accountable type of owner are being replaced by more sober recognition that they now represent a powerful layer of capitalists keen to take advantage of weakened host country governments of the global South - and North. The discussion will focus on the need to adjust political and social movement strategies accordingly.

Register for the event using this link: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/water-farmland-housing-the-growing-appetites-of-pension-fund-capitalism-tickets-1987453878050?utm-campaign=social&utm-content=attendeeshare&utm-medium=discovery&utm-term=listing&utm-source=cp&aff=ebdsshcopyurl

Please share with your networks and circulate the attached poster on your social media pages. 

- JWF Steering Committee

--

You received this message as part of the Just Water Futures email group. Reply to group Reply to sender (justwate...@gmail.com) My Membership Preferences • Contact group administrators • Report as spam Unsubscribe • Mute this thread

gmthreadidentifier::end --

--

Madeline Kiser
Co-representative, MARBE S.A. (a water & forest conservation farm)

Member: Movimiento Ríos Vivos (Living Rivers Movement - Costa Rica) and

              Federación Costarricense para la Protección del Ambiente (Costa Rican Federation for Conservation of the Environment)

Longo Mai, Costa Rica

(506) 8455-3497 - kiserm...@gmail.com