Inside the Leaders' Club

CHAPTER 8

LEADING ON THE CLIMATE CRISIS

In November 2020, a group of 38 investors, responsible for more than $9 trillion in assets, wrote a letter to over 30 of Europe’s largest companies telling them that their corporate accounts needed to carry an explanation of what they were doing to save the planet. The letter’s signatories, who included JP Morgan Asset Management, Fidelity International and M&G Investments, told the companies, Anglo American, BMW and Lufthansa, among others: ‘The accounts are key to how capital is deployed by management as well as investors. If the accounts leave out material climate risks, too much capital will go towards activities that put shareholder capital at risk. Worse still, this puts all our futures at risk.’ ...