Travers Smith's Sustainability Insights: What can (private markets) investors do about climate change?

What can investors do about climate change?  A report addressing this crucial question – a question which merits more attention than it gets – was published last month.  The report, funded by the Environmental Defense Fund and the LSE's Global School of Sustainability, draws on workshops with more than 60 senior representatives of asset owners and managers.  It is a sobering analysis, but do the conclusions also apply to alternative asset managers? 

The authors' central argument is this: Over the past decade, many investors became convinced that they could drive real-world decarbonisation through disclosure, top-down target setting, and stewardship.  But, on their own, asset managers and asset owners cannot deliver major change.  Government policy and technology development determine how fast economies decarbonise.  Investors play a supporting role, not a leading one.