The majority of Ninety One’s investees in its Global Investment portfolio are reducing carbon emissions and complying with disclosure reporting regulations, improving on recent years.
Within Ninety One’s Global Environment portfolio, a fund with €2.2bn in AUM, most companies are reducing their carbon emissions, with 70% having reduced their Scope 1, 2 and 3 emissions intensity over the last year.
The same percentage also increased their absolute carbon avoided, according to the asset manager’s recent annual report.
Portfolio companies are also increasing their reporting of carbon emissions.
The report found nearly all (95%) of companies now report Scope 1 & 2 emissions with the companies that report full carbon risk now over half.
Of the Global Environment portfolio, Ninety One found 17 had explicit carbon-reduction targets.
Just under half (42%) of the companies had targets approved by the Science Based Targets Initiative (SBTi).
Ninety One’s Global Environment portfolio managers, Deirdre Cooper and Graeme Baker, commented: “While carbon reporting is improving, we are seeing some meaningful restatements, particularly of Scope 3 emissions, where a change in methodology can result in very different emissions figures.
“This can make year-on-year comparisons between companies difficult. The fundamental and qualitative analysis of carbon data continues to be a vital overlay.”
In May, Ninety One released a study that found the European fund industry was becoming “overly reliant” on ESG scores with 88% of fund management professionals using the scores in their investment processes.
In the previous month, the investment manager made a new sustainability hire, appointing Daisy Streatfield as its new sustainability director.
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