As the climate crisis, its physical impacts and the transition to a net-zero emissions economy all accelerate, global investors increasingly recognize the material and financial risks to their portfolios. Large institutional investors know they must assess and manage climate-related risks if they are to meet their fiduciary duties to clients and beneficiaries.
These case studies offer a snapshot of how the profiled funds and institutions currently address climate risk. The approaches these funds and their peers employ are rapidly evolving as investors learn from both individual and collective experience. Ceres encourages investors at earlier stages of their climate risk-management journeys to review these case studies and consider which of these approaches could help guide their responses to climate risk.
Each has developed a range of approaches to assess and manage two fundamental risks from climate change: physical risk (e.g., the impacts of heat waves, droughts, wildfires, sea level rise, floods and stronger storms) and transition risk (e.g., the impacts of government climate policies like carbon pricing and the technology transition to renewable energy, electric vehicles, and energy and resource-efficient technologies). They are also collaborating in global initiatives, including Climate Action 100+, and in climate policy advocacy as encouraged by The Investor Agenda, to mitigate the systemic economic and social impacts of climate change.