Three of La Banque Postale Asset Management’s European equity funds took home top honours, with the firm receiving more awards than any other asset manager in Climetrics’ annual rating.
French asset managers ranked top for eight out of 15 funds and demonstrated leadership in climate performance.
Among other top funds earning Climetrics’ highest score of 5-leafs were UK asset manager Jupiter Asset Management, Sweden’s Swedbank Robur and global asset manager First State Investments, which was acquired by Mitsubishi UFJ Trust and Banking last year.
The awards will be handed out at the CDP Europe Awards at the Ministry of Europe and Foreign Affairs in Paris on 25 February, and under the patronage of Emmanuel Macron, president of France.
Out of 17,000 global funds and issue ratings, Climetrics, which was developed by CDP and ISS-ESG, has recognised 15 actively managed funds for their top climate performance in the categories European equity, global equity and emerging markets.
Applying a ‘best-in-universe approach’, Climetrics measures the performance of a fund’s holdings, an asset manager’s governance of climate issues and its investment policy to assess which funds are well-positioned in the transition to a low-carbon economy.
It calculates how well companies in a fund’s portfolio disclose and manage material risks and opportunities related to climate change, water security and deforestation.
Disclosing and managing
The second fund rating by Climetrics applies an updated methodology.
Nico Fettes, head of Climetrics at CDP, explained that this includes two changes to promote companies that are leading in their industries: “First is the integration of CDP’s water security data, meaning that Climetrics now considers how the fund’s investee companies perform disclose and manage their risks and opportunities across the three themes of climate change, water security, and deforestation.
“Second is the addition of a new materiality factor. This allows higher scores for companies that face environmental risks that are highly material but that are nonetheless disclosing and managing them well.”
Climetrics uses company data from CDP and ISS-ESG as well as RE100.
Besides this, “the methodology takes into account future-looking data from CDP, as well as data from additional sources like the Science Based Targets initiative,” Fettes said.
He explained that “greater transparency in the fund industry is key” to the low-carbon transition.
“Climetrics’ aim is to give investors confidence about their investments, and these awards recognise that certain funds represent a more progressive approach in lowering long-term risks to investors from climate change,” Fettes added.
Charlie Thomas, head of strategy, environment and sustainability at Jupiter, commented: “There is now more than ever a heightened awareness on the long-term opportunities available to companies that are addressing the challenges related to issues such as climate change, water security and deforestation, and central to our approach as investors is focussing on and backing the companies providing solutions to these sustainability challenges.”
