Late last week, Finnish pension Varma, committed to reducing emissions on its total housing stock by an estimated 48% by 2023. The installation of heat pumps and solar panels in 36 apartment buildings will support the achievement of this goal. Meanwhile, Danish PFA Pension, introduced PFA Climate Plus, a climate-focused investment with the goal to be CO2-neutral by 2025 at the latest so that by 2030 it can be CO2-negative portfolio by 2030.
According to a new report by UBS on the infrastructure sector in 2020, the energy transition will be one of the dominant trends in both Europe and the US in the coming twelve months. On Monday, Franklin Templeton announced the acquisition of three new assets for the Franklin Templeton Social Infrastructure Fund, including a school in London, a portfolio of 40 affordable housing properties in Cambridge and a hospital in Venice.
On the index side, launches continue to break new grounds. Last week, ISS ESG launched a suite of EU climate benchmark indices in partnership with index provider Solactive, The new index family will take into account the requirements specified by the European Union’s Technical Expert Group and exceed requirements by incorporating Scope 3 emissions from inception. This week, Eurex announced the launch of the new STOXX USA 500 ESG-X Index Futures, the first exchange-listed derivative that covers the U.S. market while excluding thermal coal extraction and coal-fired power plants.
This week, we caught up with Shawn Westcott who joined Triodos Investment Management at the beginning of the month. He looks back at his career in the impact space so far and shares his enthusiasm for the current market expansion. We also met with Yashica Reddy from Schroders, one of the people behind the firm’s Climate Progress Dashboard, to discuss the use of the tool and its gloomy predictions.
