As part of the UK's presidency of COP26, the UK Government encouraged industry to commit to support the objective of transitioning the economy to net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. Specifically, the Race to Zero Breakthroughs were launched in January 2021, setting a target for industry to make a net zero commitment which is aligned with the UN-led Race to Zero. 

The Race to Zero is an umbrella initiative for net zero climate change initiatives involving non-state actors. This includes cities, large corporates, small businesses, charities and parts of the financial services industry, among many others. This was launched in 2020 to act as a counterpart to the net zero commitments which have been made by national governments since the Paris Agreement was signed in 2015, if not even earlier.

Following the launch of Race to Zero, the industry launched its own commitment – the Net Zero Asset Managers initiative – in December 2020.

The IA is proud to support members signing up to the Net Zero Asset Managers initiative and was named as the first official supporting partner organisation to NZAM in July 2021. To date, investment managers with £7trn of assets under management in the UK have made these net zero commitments. This represents nearly three-quarters of the AUM in the UK.

By becoming a supporting partner organisation of NZAM, the IA is formalising a commitment we made with the full support of the Board to support the Race to Zero, the Net Zero Asset Managers initiative and any members considering becoming signatories.

We held the first meeting of the IA’s new Net Zero Forum on Tuesday 12 October. For this first meeting we were joined by Daisy Streatfeild of the IIGCC to discuss the Investor Agenda’s Expectations Ladder for Investor Climate Action Plans.

We hope the forum will enable peer-to-peer knowledge sharing and provide a platform for all IA members to raise questions and find solutions in their journey to net zero.

If you are interested in joining the Net Zero Forum please contact Paul Scaping. We would like to understand the issues, relating to both investments and operations, on which members would find it useful for each forum meeting to focus. To support this, I would be grateful if any members wishing to attend the forum and raise a question could submit it in advance. To enable an exchange of information which supports the whole industry we would particularly like to encourage members with experience of pursuing net zero policies to attend and share this experience with colleagues.