March 2026
25Mar

Oil shock opens pension fund checkbooks for Europe’s climate – er, ‘energy security’ – fund managers

While the conflict with Iran has choked off the flow of oil through the Strait of Hormuz, it has opened the tap from European pension funds and other investors looking to capitalize on increased urgency around the continent’s energy security. Clean energy and other infrastructure project developers, along with climate tech fund managers, are finding a suddenly more welcoming reception from institutional investors in Europe, even as dealmaking in the Middle East itself has stalled (see, “Middle East sovereign wealth financed...

March 25, 2026
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20Mar

Universal Owner and Impact of Its Engagement Program: An Analysis of Engagement Records of Japan’s GPIF

By Masahiro Shibata & Kazunori Suzuki This study examines the impact of Japan’s Government Pension Investment Fund (GPIF) engagement program, leveraging a proprietary dataset of 26,792 engagements across 21 externally managed funds from fiscal years 2017 to 2022. As one of the largest universal owners globally, GPIF plays a pivotal role in influencing corporate behavior through structured engagements aimed at improving corporate governance, environmental sustainability, and financial performance. Despite growing global interest in engagement-driven stewardship, empirical evidence on its effectiveness...

March 20, 2026
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13Mar

2025 Global Innovation Lab for Climate Finance Impact Report

By Climate Policy Initiative The 2025 Global Innovation Lab for Climate Finance (the Lab) Impact Report highlights how innovative financial solutions are helping mobilize private investment for climate action in emerging markets. From 2014 to 2025, the Lab incubated 87 climate finance instruments designed to address barriers to investment in sectors such as renewable energy, sustainable agriculture, nature-based solutions, and climate resilience. Together, these solutions have mobilized USD 4.4 billion in climate investment, with USD 1.83 billion from private investors. The report...

March 13, 2026
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13Mar

UK pension fund to vote against boards backpedaling on climate

UK pension giant Nest will now vote against board chairs where the company they oversee has materially scaled back its climate commitments without explanation. Updating its voting policy, Nest said where adjustments are made to transition strategies, boards are expected to provide clear and evidence-based reasoning to shareholders. It said it will now be more explicit in its voting approach to support constructive dialogue with companies. Nest director of responsible investment Diandra Soobiah said the update builds on the existing approach...

March 13, 2026
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January 2026
30Jan

Scaling Sustainable Investing in Emerging and Developing Economies: Frictions and Opportunities

By Caroline Flammer, Thomas Giroux & Geoffrey M. Heal Mobilizing private capital at scale is critical for financing sustainable development, particularly in emerging and developing economies (EMDEs), where capital is most needed. We conduct a global survey of senior investment decision-makers across a broad spectrum of capital providers, including asset managers, pension and sovereign wealth funds, development finance institutions, philanthropic investors, and others. The survey provides novel evidence on investors’ risk-return expectations, risk perceptions, and investment practices in EMDEs and...

January 30, 2026
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28Jan

Canadian pensions diverging in climate approach: report

An advocacy group says there’s an increasing divergence on how big public pensions in Canada are approaching climate action. The group, called Shift: Action for Pension Wealth and Planet Health, says in its annual ranking that La Caisse is showing the best results yet while CPPIB is falling behind. Shift says it lowered CPPIB’s ranking because the pension giant removed its stated net-zero goal, has a lack of clarity on a climate strategy and continues to invest in fossil fuels. CPPIB, which...

January 28, 2026
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December 2025
19Dec

State of OECD Pension Funds’ Climate Transition: Insights and recommendations from the Net Zero Finance Tracker

By Frederick Fabian, Claris Parenti, Maddy Taylor & Valerio Micale Unlike other institutional investors, which often focus on short-term performance, pension providers have a fiduciary duty to address long-term systemic issues and act in their beneficiaries’ best interests. In many jurisdictions, this obligation includes setting credible climate targets, implementing internal changes to strategy, governance, and process, and actively supporting the decarbonization of the real economy. Pension funds’ role in financing the climate transition is drawing sharper focus as the limits of...

December 19, 2025
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19Dec

Heterogeneous Institutional Investor Response to Firm Environmental Regulatory Risk

By Chunxiao Lu, Yuyang Zhang & Linxiang Ma This paper investigates whether institutional investors incorporate firm-level environmental regulatory risk into their portfolio decisions. We document substantial heterogeneity across investor types in their responses to changes in firm-level environmental regulatory risk. Long-horizon investors, such as banks, insurance companies, and pension funds, tend to tilt their portfolios toward stocks with higher environmental regulatory risk. In contrast, short-horizon investors, including investment advisors and mutual funds, reduce their holdings of these firms. These opposing...

December 19, 2025
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19Dec

TfL Pension Fund raises ESG allocation to 15.9% after exceeding net-zero target

The TfL Pension Fund has surpassed its interim net-zero target and increased its allocation to environmental, social and governance (ESG)-tilted investments to nearly 16 per cent, according to its latest report on sustainable investing. The fund reported a 58 per cent reduction in carbon emissions intensity as of 31 March 2025, relative to a 2016 baseline, exceeding its 55 per cent reduction target for 2030. Its long-term objective remains a 100 per cent reduction by 2045. At the same time, ESG-tilted investments...

December 19, 2025
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16Dec

Big pension funds make progress on climate but much more needed, report shows

Major pension funds are increasingly adopting climate targets and shifting their strategy to respond to global warming, according to a new report on the sector. However, many still invest in fossil fuel companies and more regulation is needed so the industry contributes further to the net zero transition. The proportion of pension funds with at least one climate target jumped to 63% in 2024 from just 9% in 2020, according to the Climate Policy Initiative (CPI) thinktank. The CPI report...

December 16, 2025
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