Sustainable Investing

The publicly traded firms in a handful of emissions-intensive sectors are responsible for about 60% of all global emissions. By allocating capital to climate solutions and carbon improvers in these sectors, investors can make progress toward their net zero goals, even if that leads to higher spot portfolio emissions than if they were to cut these emissions-intensive sectors altogether.

Greenhouse gas emissions are highly concentrated in a few key sectors in investor portfolios; the publicly traded firms in these sectors alone are responsible for about 60% of all global emissions. Investors thinking through climate risks, climate opportunities, and net zero alignment should focus on these sectors.

Top1000Funds highlights Co-CIO for Sustainability Carsten Stendevad’s recent conversation in a sustainability forum at Harvard University as he examines the role of investors in financing the transition to a low carbon economy and measurements involved in assessing and understanding the credibility of a company’s transition plans.

Europe’s energy supply shock is creating a painful stagflation, and policy makers face a difficult set of choices. Looking forward, structurally higher energy prices will be a long-term competitiveness challenge for Europe.

On an episode of Reuters’ “The Exchange” podcast, Co-CIOs for Sustainability Karen Karniol-Tambour and Carsten Stendevad share their perspectives on the current ESG debate. While agreeing with a number of the common criticisms, they lay out their case for the merits of pursing sustainable investing in a fundamental and systematic way.

In a piece published by Project Syndicate, Co-CIO Karen-Karniol-Tambour describes the economic, political, and social consequences of today’s energy shortages. These were not created overnight — after years of underinvestment in production capacity, even a small reduction in global supply can send prices skyward, and now policymakers and investors face a full array of difficult choices.

During a wide-ranging conversation with "The Money Maze Podcast," Co-CIO Karen Karniol-Tambour describes how Bridgewater’s fundamental and systematic approach to sustainable investing, including engineering sustainable portfolios by systematically assessing and selecting assets for sustainability criteria.

Co-CIOs for Sustainability Karen Karniol-Tambour and Carsten Stendevad discuss how the Ukraine invasion has changed the sustainable investing landscape, what the energy price rally has meant for global climate policy, and how they think about building a diversified portfolio that can also have a positive sustainability impact.

At the Top1000Funds “Sustainability in Practice” forum, Co-CIO for Sustainability Carsten Stendevad joined Amanda White for discussion on today’s hot inflationary environment, the multi-faceted nature of the transition to a low-carbon economy, and how investors are seeking to build “sustainable” portfolios at scale to support their net zero commitments.

With rising energy prices and inflation the highest we've seen in decades, political appetite for curbing climate change by further raising energy prices will continue to decline. Co-CIO Karen Karniol-Tambour describes how we must shift to using tools that target reducing the cost of "green" energy: green fiscal spending and R&D supporting tech advancements.

Pulitzer Prize-winning author Daniel Yergin joins Co-CIO Karen Karniol-Tambour and our investment team for a conversation on the green energy transition, the key dynamics driving energy markets, and how the politics of energy are impacting international relations.

As part of the Brookings Institutions’ “17 Rooms” podcast series, Co-CIO for Sustainability, Carsten Stendevad discusses the role institutional investors can play in the fight against forced labor and modern slavery, and the project he is co-leading to bring together leading global modern slavery experts to develop reliable forced labor risk data for institutional investors to use in their investment processes.

The transition to green energy will be an increasingly important driver of economies and markets. In this research, we stress test the impact on investor portfolios of four broad mechanisms that could accelerate the climate transition.