This week we look at longer-term forces. In the UK, it appears that more people are topping up their state pensions with private pensions. Also, the impossibly perfect Nordic countries may have a dark side – their environmental impact.

Pension Wealth in Great Britain: April 2016 to March 2018 (ONS, 31 min read) The last decade saw an increase of around 10 percentage points (from 43% to 53%) in the number of adults below State Pension age who actively contribute to a private pension, which is very likely the result of automatic enrolment introduction that happened between 2012 and 2018. Median pension wealth for pensions in payment for men is double that for women. [Bullish private pension funds]

The Dark Side of the Nordic Model (Al-Jazeera, 4 min read) Scandinavian countries may top every ranking on human development, but their ecological impact on the planet is outsized. They have some of the highest levels of resource use and CO2 emissions in the world with sustainable level of resource consumption at 32 tons per year compared to the average of 7 tons per year. If everyone in the world consumed like Scandinavians, we would need nearly five Earths to sustain us. [Bullish ESG]