global Climate 500 INDEX 2015/

TRANSPARENCY

PREFACE

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The AODP Global Climate 500 is the world standard for assessing the world’s largest investors on climate-risk management. In a year that has seen carbon and fossil fuel risk become centre stage in the climate debate, the question of who owns and manages the carbon is critical.

In addition to measuring and reporting their portfolio exposure, asset owners have come under new pressure to adjust their core investment processes to consistently reduce this exposure and manage third parties whose models and investment decisions drive that exposure.

Some of the questions we answer include: how are asset owners rising to the unique challenge of climate change? Are the leaders accelerating? Who are the largest laggards? Which country’s asset owners are most pro-active? Have endowments or foundations improved as a result of the divestment movement?

The AODP Global Climate 500 has been produced by assessing the world’s largest 500 asset owners including pension funds, sovereign wealth funds, insurance companies, foundations and endowments. Funds are rated from AAA through to D grade, with an extra X category being added for those funds at the bottom that appear to be doing absolutely nothing to manage this critical risk.

REPORT WRITTEN AND PRODUCED BY:

RACHEL MADEIROS-MHENDE CFA, OLIVER WAGG AND JOSHUA SHEPPARD

THE ASSET OWNERS DISCLOSURE PROJECT GIVES SPECIAL THANKS TO THE FOLLOWING PEOPLE IN PRODUCING THIS REPORT:

VICTORIA BRYANT, LUKE FAY, ROBERT SCHWARZ, HUGUES LETOURNEAU, PAVEL KIRJANAS, MARK MCCAW, SERENA RITCHIE, MARCUS MORLEY, ELLIOT LAVERS, GINA SAHOTA, OLIVIER CASSARO, TRACY NGUYEN, NOZUKO MKETO, DANIEL GOCHER, AADESH GOSRANI, ANDREA BARBERIS

THE ONGOING SUPPORT OF AODP’S FUNDERS IS ACKNOWLEDGED. A FULL LIST CAN BE FOUND ON OUR WEBSITE (WWW.AODPROJECT.NET).

THE VIEWS IN THIS REPORT REMAIN THOSE OF AODP.

TRANSPARENCY

The Asset Owners Disclosure Project (AODP) is an independent not-for-profit global organisation whose objective is to protect investments held by the world’s largest asset owners’ – pension funds, insurance companies, sovereign wealth funds, foundations and endowments – from the risks posed by climate change. It does this by working with asset owners to improve the level of disclosure and industry best practice in climate risk assessment and management.

AODP researches and produces the annual Global Climate 500 Index, while developing stakeholder communication platforms and campaigns to drive the use of the index data. This creates a top-down and bottom-up approach to driving asset owners to manage climate risk.

The AODP has a board of senior leaders with investment, risk-management, business, trade union, political, academic and environment backgrounds, including John Hewson, Bob Litterman, Sharon Burrows and John Connor.

The index provides asset owners (and their stakeholders, members and beneficiaries) with valuable insight into the strategies deployed by some of the largest asset owners in the world in relation to climate change. The initiative encourages funds to engage in climate change-related investment risk assessment through the investment chain, often for the first time.

Another initiative of the AODP, The Vital Few (www.areyouthevitalfew.org), piloted a community of superannuation/pension fund members in UK, Canada and Australia who have been inspired to take action to ensure investments made on their behalf provide for their future prosperity – both financially and environmentally. They do this by asking the pensions funds to disclose their current investment assets and their portfolio climate risk management strategies.

CONTENTS

PREFACE ABOUT AODP 02/EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 03/KEY FINDINGS 05/DATA 17NOTES 27

KNOWNUNKNOWN

ABOUT AODP

02

with the december 2015 un climate change conference in paris looming large many people are doubtful the world’s nations will reach a solution without the successful realignment of the investment chain, the most important part of the global financial system.

in turn, the most important link in the investment chain consists of long-term institutional investors, known as asset owners. together they own over $70 trillion capital, which dwarfs the approximate $10 trillion required to effect a low-carbon transition.

2014 was an extraordinary year for climate-change investment. the 350.org fossil fuel divestment campaign has driven many funds to take a public stance on climate risk. 350’s great resources and penetration has meant that there are few asset owners in the world not considering how to communicate a climate risk strategy to their stakeholders.

the ratings methodology behind the aodp global climate 500 is purely performance focussed and asset owners do not get points for commitments or media releases. Full, direct disclosure was received on nearly $5 trillion worth of assets under management, a doubling from last year’s direct disclosure.

the key developments over the past year on climate risk communication include:

/ Regular announcements by asset owners on carbon-risk management

/ proliferation of low-carbon investment initiatives

/ greater acknowledgement of asset owners’ role in climate action by politicians and economic agencies

/ greater commitments (and some action) by leading asset owners

EXECUTIVE SUMMARy

KEy DEVELOPMENTS CARBON COMPARISON

WHERE IS THE MONEy TO SOLVE CLIMATE CHANGE?

only 7% of assets owners are able to calculate their emissions

only 1.4% of asset owners have reduced their carbon intensity from the previous year

only 2% of asset owners have an emissions intensity reduction target for next year

04

$Tn

$37Tn

$28Tn

$10Tn

80

70

60

50

40

30

20

10

the asset owners InVestMent sPLIt 2%

50%

48%

$<1Tn

Low-CarBon InVestMent

CLIMate Change exPosed InVestMents

Cost to soLVe CLIMate Change

PensIon FUnds

InsUranCe CoMPanIes

FoUndatIons/endowMents

aodP researCh 2012 Based on anaLysIs oF steM 2006

soVereIgn weaLth FUnds

other InVestMents

7%

1.4%

2%

IF ALL FUNDS WERE ACCELERATING AT THE SAME RATE AS THE AAA FUNDS WE WOULD BE MUCH CLOSER TO SOLVING CLIMATE CHANGE.

THE GAP BETWEEN CLIMATE RISK MANAGEMENT LEADERS AND LAGGARDS IS WIDENING.

06

KEy FINDINGS

this year nine asset owners achieved the aaa rating, four more than last year.

with the number of aaa-rated asset owners rising to nine, the still small group of leaders are accelerating progress.

Many of the higher rated asset owners have significantly lower carbon emissions than their respective indices. We recommend underweighting carbon, however simply doing this will not create a low-carbon transition without a full blown capital switch and increase to their low-carbon investment. Asset owners are not going to be able to remain underweight whole sectors for long without adding alternative low-carbon investments to their portfolio.

However, assuming that the equivalent low-carbon assets in each sector eventually balance this underweighting of carbon intensive assets would release hundreds of billions of dollars into the low-carbon economy. The implications are simple, but staggering: leaders are well on the way to solving climate change, but will only succeed if their peers join them in moving towards this tipping point of a capital switch into low-carbon.

With this year’s ratings methodology being recalibrated more towards performance, the performance of these AAA funds is even more impressive. This gap between top and bottom is exacerbated by an increase in the number of laggard (D and X rated) funds. The size of the leadership group rating A or above is interesting. The mean assets under management (AUM) for the AODP index is $72 billion, but the mean AUM for the leadership group rated A and above is actually $145 billion. This shows that generally speaking the larger asset owners have built the kind of internal capacity that allows them to more pro-actively manage climate risks. However, it is worth noting that size is clearly not a factor in leadership per se as there are significant leadership examples such as Local Government Super in Australia that ranked number 1 in the index, with only $7.5 billion under management.

CLIMATE LAGGARDS CONTINUE TO BE STUCK WITH INEFFECTIVE CLIMATE-RISK MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS, AND ARE NOT MOVING AT ALL.

THERE IS STILL A GENERAL CRISIS OF TRANSPARENCY AMONGST ASSET OWNERS, BUT THE TIPPING POINT IS CLOSE.

KEy FINDINGS

there were in total 232 X-rated asset owners this year and 192 d-rated, for a total of 424 laggard asset owners, or 85% of the industry.

this year the number of direct disclosers to aodp doubled.

Last year, AODP introduced a new ratings band below D – the X rating. This was to highlight those asset owners that are doing nothing material to manage the financially material risks associated with climate change.

This year the number of X-rated asset owners has actually increased by 59, party because AODP decided to remove credit in the ratings methodology for general policy commitments that in reality had no evidence of execution or implementation. With no meaningful points for transparency, some of these asset owners actually lost points from last year’s score.

For those asset owners with fiduciary exposure, such as pension funds and possibly endowments, it is only a matter of time before the recently announced UK initiative involving AODP and environmental lawyers ClientEarth is replicated in other jurisdictions.

In addition to the prospect of future legal escalation around fiduciary duty, there is a new pressure that is building on all asset owners to do better, which comes from their peers. Impressive action by leading asset owners to minimise risks to their stakeholders’ funds, is being diluted by laggard asset owners resisting such change either by refusing to do the requisite analysis or to change processes, policies or culture.

While the AODP index is widely recognised by asset owners as the leading framework for disclosure, a large number of them chose not to disclose directly. In AODP’s experience this is for two reasons: Firstly asset owners do not want members discovering that they have no other solution than to rely on their fund managers to bail them out of a carbon crisis, or that they rely purely on traditional strategic asset allocations to manage climate risk. The second reason is more encouraging as many asset owners have indicated to AODP that they are midstream in the development of a carbon-risk management plan and that they would rather not disclose anything until they are able to portray their fund’s conduct in a more favourable light.

While we are still concerned about the level of overall transparency, this year’s improvement in the number of disclosing asset owners together with the promises for next year give us confidence that we are close to a tipping point. None of this direct transparency impacts our ability to rate asset owners however, as AODP rates the asset owners regardless of direct disclosure and those asset owners that are active or commencing their journey are generally proud of their achievements, and keen to show their stakeholders that they have nothing to hide.

08

MANY FUNDS HAVE SIMPLY NOT DONE THEIR HOMEWORK AND ARE RELYING ON SHORT-TERM ORIENTED FUND MANAGERS TO SAVE THEM IN THE LONG TERM.

ONLY A VERY FEW ASSET OWNERS HAVE IMPLEMENTED SOME PROTECTION AGAINST A FINANCIAL CRISIS.

KEy FINDINGS

only 17 asset owners have done any systematic scenario analysis on climate risk.

protection can only be afforded by creating and implementing a diversified hedging strategy.

The AODP Best Practice Methodology that is linked to the ratings methodology describes seven different but parallel market-based pathways to a low-carbon economy, any of which could have the same devastating impact on a portfolio as if governments were forced to implement 2 degree carbon-pricing. The traditional processes within many asset owners make portfolio wide assessment of systemic risks difficult and the default strategy of many asset owners is to assume that their fund managers will be able to sell and exit any portfolio wide risks once such an acceleration of climate risk begins. This is of course a fallacy as when it comes to systemic risks such as climate change (or sub-prime mortgages) there will be no liquidity in markets for stranded assets and so it will be impossible to protect value.

Some of the best performing leaders in this year’s index have recognised this and have made statements about abandoning indexation as an ineffective climate risk management tool, essentially recognising that short-term markets continue to misprice the risk. These asset owners are using low carbon indexes and other asset classes to hedge climate risk while addressing the distinctive climate risk issues within their equity portfolios to form an overall approach.

Given the lack of mitigation options available for climate risk, protection can only be afforded members by those managing their assets, creating and implementing a diversified hedging strategy. This might include some divestment, some underweighting, strong engagement with blue chip high-carbon companies and a low carbon allocation. In particular, the low-carbon investments are the ones that will increase most in value once high-carbon investments are priced out of the market.The reason for this is because any carbon pricing mechanism implemented will create higher earnings forecasts and thus higher valuations for assets, such as renewable energy projects which currently have to compete on largely equal terms, as many investors have not allowed any forward carbon pricing to impact the investment models of such assets.

Whilst innovation is one driver of competitiveness for clean assets against fossil fuel based ones, there are other forces such as attempts at carbon pricing and off market capital shifts by some leading investors who have decided to reduce their high-carbon investments -some base this on scenario analysis others do so for ethical reasons.

10

THERE IS AN INCREASING SENSE OF ACCOUNTABILITY AROUND RISK MANAGEMENT.

CHANGE IS POSSIBLE.

KEy FINDINGS

Many asset owners have improved their communications functions in the past year realising the increasing pressure to explain their investment positions.

changing fund processes to better manage climate risk is achievable without significant return sacrifice.

Sovereign wealth funds and insurance companies have not made much ground in recognising accountability over climate risk to their stakeholders. However, pension funds, foundations and endowments certainly have. Whilst foundations and endowments do not have members as such, they recognise the responsibility for enhanced stewardship that comes with advantageous tax treatments of their capital and some have stakeholder groups such as university alumni and committees who are deeply aware of climate risk.

Many pension funds have recognized that the age of new member accountability and financial democracy has arrived. The divestment movement run by 350.org and similar movements such as Share Action’s Greenlight campaign and AODP’s Vital Few have generated a new recognition from pension funds about the need to explain their long-term strategies.

Many asset owners have improved their communications functions in the past year realising the increasing pressure to explain their investment positions, but also as a genuine attempt to communicate to peers the progress that is possible. However, some asset owners are still using the media to highlight particular examples of progress without being transparent on their overall position leading to accusations of ‘green wash’.

Enough leaders have emerged to prove that changing fund processes to better manage climate risk is achievable without significant return sacrifice and without immediate government carbon pricing. We would normally expect there to be some cost to the implementation of a climate hedging strategy that might in the short term inhibit the returns of asset owners implementing climate-risk management strategies. But so far this has not been the case. However, these stronger returns may be medium term only as asset owners looking to underweight carbon in the last few years, as part of their hedging strategy, would have done exceptionally well due to the collapse in fossil fuel based commodity prices.

12

12

REDUCING PORTFOLIO CARBON EXPOSURE IS KEY TO MANAGING CLIMATE RISK.

KEY FINDINGS

Only 7% of asset owners calculate their portfolio carbon footprint and only 1.4% have a target to reduce this.

A key metric that AODP applies to its ratings methodology is the level of portfolio carbon exposure, strategies to reduce the exposure and the success or failure of these strategies. Currently, only 35 asset owners (7%) calculate their portfolio carbon footprint and only seven asset owners (1.4%) have a target to reduce this. This is despite the encouragement by various initiatives such as the Montreal Carbon Pledge, run by the UN Principles for Responsible Investment.

However, there have been some exceptional examples of funds reducing their portfolio carbon exposure within certain asset classes. For example one of our AAA-rated asset owners reduced its portfolio carbon exposure in their equities portfolio by 23% in a single year. With the growth of-low carbon indices we expect to see this kind of example increase next year.

HOW ARE THE WORLD’S LEADING INVESTORS MANAGING CLIMATE RISK?

AODP GLOBAL CLIMATE 500 2015

DATA

rating assetowners 2015 assetowners 2013-14 PerCategorY2015 (%) PerCategorY2013-14 (%)

BY RATING

18

these funds were rated X by the aodp analyst team where they could find no evidence at all on how these funds are managing climate change.

X

aaa 9 1.8% 5 1 .1%

aa 7 1.4% 10 2.2%

a 8 1.6% 12 2.6%

BBB 9 1.8% 6 1.3%

BB 8 1.6% 10 2.2%

B 8 1.6% 10 2.2%

CCC 9 1.8% 16 3.5%

CC 9 1.8% 9 2.0%

C 9 1.8% 16 3.5%

D 192 38.4% 191 41.7%

X 232 46.4% 173 37.8%

totaL 500 458

taBLe 01 / asset owners In eaCh ratIng Category

DATA

BY REGIONBY COUNTRY

taBLe 03 / regIonaL ranKIng taBLe 02 / CoUntry ranKIng toP 10

1

2

3

5

4

6

7

8

1 0

NORWAy

AUSTRALIA

SWEDEN

FRANCE

NEW ZEALAND

NETHERLANDS

SOUTH AFRICA

DENMARK

CANADA

UNITED KINGDOM

9

1

2

3

5

4

6

7

7

=

=

AUSTRALASIA

SCANDINAVIA

CANADA

UNITED KINGDOM

REST OF EUROPE

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

MIDDLE EAST & AFRICA

CENTRAL & SOUTH AMERICA

ASIA9

20

22

DATA

RATINGSKEY

MAP 01 / RATINGS GLOBAL OVERVIEW

BY WORLDVIEW

DATA

BY OVERVIEWBY TYPE

nU

MB

er

rat

ed

PENSION FUNDS

INSURANCE COMPANIES

SOVEREIGN WEALTH FUNDS

FOUNDATIONS/ENDOWMENTS

total

375

66

39

20

500

% o

F s

Ur

Vey

75

1 3

08

04

100

nU

MB

er

In t

oP

100

77

1 4

05

04

100

% In

to

P 1

00

20.5

21.2

12.8

20

taBLe 05 / the 500 asset owners taBLe 04 / asset owner tyPe ranKIng

1

2

3

4

PENSION FUNDS

INSURANCE COMPANIES

FOUNDATIONS/ENDOWMENTS

SOVEREIGN WEALTH FUNDS

24

2015 CoMParison assetownernaMe CoUntrY assetownertYPe 2015ranK to2014 rating

1 +1 local government super australia pension aaa

2 +36 kommunal landspensjonskasse klp norway pension aaa

3 0 calpeRs usa pension aaa

4 +28 abp netherlands pension aaa

5 -4 environment agency pension Fund uk pension aaa

6 +21 new york state common Retirement Fund (nyscRF) usa pension aaa

7 -1 australiansuper australia pension aaa

8 -4 pensioenfonds zorg en welzijn (pFzw) netherlands pension aaa

9 +54 Fjärde ap-Fonden (ap4) sweden pension aaa

10 +35 pension & health benefits of united Methodist church usa pension aa

11 +93 andra ap-Fonden (ap2) sweden pension aa

12 -2 aviva plc - insurance uk insurance aa

13 90 First state super australia pension aa

14 +1 california state teachers’ Retirement system (calstRs) usa pension aa

15 -10 vicsuper australia pension aa

16 +70 universities superannuation scheme uk pension aa

17 -5 caresuper australia pension a

18 +80 pka a/s denmark pension a

19 +36 new york city employees Retirement system (nyceRs) usa pension a

20 +35 teachers’ Retirement system of the city of new york (tRs) usa pension a

21 +139 united nations Joint staff pension Fund usa pension a

22 +19 government pension Fund - global (gpFg norway) norway sovereign wealth a

23 n/a eRaFp (etablissement de retraite additionnelle de la Fonction publique) France pension a

24 +10 allianz se germany insurance a

DATA

BY LEADERSBY PORTFOLIO RETURN

taBLe 07 / 2015 aodP gLoBaL CLIMate 500 toP rated asset owners taBLe 06 / 2014 PortFoLIo retUrns oF the 9 aaa rated asset owners

ranK fUnD CoUntrY netPortfoLioretUrn/2014

1 local government super austRalia 9%*

2 kommunal landspensjonskasse klp noRway 8.2%

3 calpeRs usa 6.5%

4 abp netheRlands 14.5%*

5 environment agency pension Fund uk 8.4%

6 new york state common Retirement Fund (nyscRF) usa 13.02%*

7 australiansuper austRalia 13.88%*

8 pensioenfonds zorg en welzijn (pFzw) netheRlands 15.5%

9 Fjärde ap-Fonden (ap4) sweden 15.7%

these asset owners returns are for the 2013-14 period*

NOTES

THE AODP RATINGS METHODOLOGYthe asset owners disclosure project (aodp) 2015 global climate 500 index is built from data acquired directly from the largest asset owners which are invited to respond to the survey and by a research team using publicly available information.

the aodp research team use the collected data to score and rank the funds according to the aodp ratings methodology which uses multiple data sets across five main aspects of an asset owner’s climate change performance:

1. tRanspaRency2. Risk ManageMent3. low-caRbon investMent4. active owneRship5. incentive chain alignMent

RANKING

W W W. A O D P R O J E C T. N E T

the aodp survey also ranks each asset owner on the basis of its score.

copies oF the aodp 2015 suRvey and the suRvey Methodology aReavailable on the aodp website

RATINGonce the asset owners are ranked, a comparative rating is awarded to each asset owner. the aodp rating system is a unique feature of the aodp survey. the larger survey meant that the benchmarks for all categories in the aodp rating system were raised for the 2015 survey.

28

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