IIGCC looks to support asset owners in assessing managers’ climate stewardship
The Institutional Investors Group on Climate Change (IIGCC) has said it is looking into the relationship between asset owners and asset managers over the issue of climate stewardship.
The move from the IIGCC comes at the end of an AGM season in which the relationship between the position of asset owner and manager in the climate space has been challenged as being increasingly estranged, with owners pushing for more robust action.
The IIGCC will be launching a questionnaire which will look to support a more consistent approach to the relationship between asset owners and asset managers in terms of exercising climate-related stewardship responsibilities and reporting on climate engagement.
It also provides asset owners questions for due diligence when selecting an asset manager, and quantitative reporting when monitoring asset managers.
The questionnaire was compiled by the IIGCC’s Asset Owner Working Group, which contains representatives from 10 organisations including Aegon UK, Guys & St Thomas’s Foundation, Brightwell, Phoenix Group, and Nest.
Samantha Chew, stewardship lead at Aegon UK, said: “Savers’ pension pots are at risk if investors do not adequately manage financially material climate risks. However, right now the industry does not have an effective way to assess the quality of net zero stewardship."
She called it "fantastic to play a part in this much needed IIGCC working group, looking to help increase accountability and alignment between asset owners and managers. A good success measure for this work would be more transparency and outcomes-focused practice on net zero engagement."
Chew also cited research from Triodos Bank UK, which showed that nearly three quarters of the UK public (73%) believed there was a need to collectively invest in long-term solutions to the issues the world is facing – such as investing in renewable energy to bring down energy costs and reducing reliance on fossil fuels.
In April, the IIGCC launched a framework for investors to assess alignment of oil and gas companies’ transition plans with a 1.5oC climate scenario.
