ESG round-up: Australia publishes sustainable finance roadmap

The Australian government has published a sustainable finance roadmap, setting out timelines for a series of key policy pillars and regulatory moves. Among the topics covered are mandatory climate-related financial disclosures, taxonomy implementation and developing sustainable product labels.

Kristy Graham, CEO of the Australian Sustainable Finance Institute, said the roadmap provided “welcome clarity” and praised the mentions of nature and climate adaptation in the roadmap.

Aegon UK is set to switch 74 percent of the £12 billion ($15 billion; €14 billion) largest default fund of its workplace pension offering into decarbonising mandates. The allocations, which will be managed by BlackRock, cover passive equity and debt investments, with the switch set to be made by the end of this year. The funds have an initial reduction in emissions intensity against their benchmark followed by 7 percent year-on-year reductions, and are set to also have a 20 percent improvement in taxonomy-aligned green revenues.

The fund will also begin investing in private assets, with allocations to private debt and alternative fixed income to be managed Aegon’s asset management wing. Infrastructure, private equity and forestry assets will be managed by JPMorgan Asset Management. Lorna Blyth, head of investment propositions at Aegon, said the move would “significantly support” the firm’s desire to put £500 million into climate solutions by 2026.

Dutch pension funds have cut their investments in fossil fuel producers by just over two-thirds since the Paris Agreement, according to new analysis by a coalition of Dutch NGOs. The group looked at seven of the largest funds, which together manage around 70 percent of Dutch pension assets, and found that holdings in fossil companies had fallen from €15.5 billion in 2017 to €5.0 billion in 2023. PME, the pension scheme for the mechanical and electrical engineering sector, and civil service pension scheme ABP have seen the largest contraction in holdings, ditching 92 percent and 81 percent respectively.

The UK’s Financial Conduct Authority has one active enforcement case against a company on climate grounds, according to a freedom of information request filed by legal group ClientEarth. Documents shared with lawmakers this year show that the issues in the case “had been a matter of supervisory focus with the firm for more than two years” before the investigation was opened.

Commerzbank has described proposals put forward by the EU’s financial regulators to reform SFDR as “promising” but said there were some aspects that could be developed further. A note from the bank’s head of ESG research, Stephan Kippe, said the product category proposals should address the main shortcomings of the current framework. He added that there should be a separate impact category, and designing a framework for transition criteria “could prove challenging”.

Planet Tracker has accused the plastic industry of engaging in greenwashing due to its promotion of recycling as the “silver bullet” to the plastic pollution crisis, in a new report. “The plastic industry’s tactics have successfully shifted focus away from upstream measures, such as limiting production and adopting alternative materials,” said John Willis, director of research at Planet Tracker. “By promoting the illusion of recyclability, the industry has effectively passed the financial burden of waste treatment onto local municipalities and waste-pickers, often the financially weakest link in the plastic supply chain.” In May, Responsible Investor spoke to investors who are ramping up engagement with companies on the issue.

Crédit Agricole’s wealth management arm Indosuez has launched an Article 9 green bond fund. The fund, a 2028 fixed maturity fund, invests in around 60 ICMA-aligned green bonds across a broad sector and geographical range.

The Society of Pension Professionals has published a practical guide for UK trustees to engage with their asset managers on ESG. The guide aims to provide an outline of various disclosure requirements, ESG obligations for managers, and information that trustees need from them. Sophia Singleton, the society’s president, said there was “still some uncertainty” around the topic and that the guide aimed to raise awareness and understanding.

The number of companies disclosing a transition plan that they regard as 1.5C-aligned has increased 44 percent since 2022, according to CDP, the environmental data disclosure nonprofit. One-quarter of companies (5,906) that disclosure to CDP report having climate transition plans in place last year. But just 1 percent of firms report against all 21 climate transition plan indicators in CDP’s questionnaire. 

The Network for Greening the Financial System (NGFS) has published revised guidance on how central banks should disclose climate-related information. The updates to the guidance, first issued in 2021, introduce two tiers for disclosure: “baseline”, for foundational information that supervisors should disclose; and “building blocks”, for more “advanced pieces of information that central banks ‘are encouraged to’ disclose”. Building block KPIs tabled by the NGFS include forward-looking metrics for physical and transition risks, and their external communications strategy for raising awareness on climate risks.