Climate change is one of the greatest challenges facing humankind this century. If left unchecked, it is likely to result in more frequent and severe climatic events, with the potential to cause substantial disruption to our economies, businesses and livelihoods in the coming decades. Yet the associated risks remain poorly understood, as climate shocks differ from the financial shocks observed during previous crises. This paper describes the ECB’s economy-wide climate stress test, which has been developed to assess the resilience of non-financial corporates (NFCs) and euro area banks to climate risks, under various assumptions in terms of future climate policies. This stress test comprises three main pillars: (i) climate-specific scenarios to project climate and macroeconomic conditions over the next 30 years; (ii) a comprehensive dataset that combines climate and financial information for millions of companies worldwide and approximately 1,600 consolidated euro area banks; (iii) a novel set of climate-specific models to capture the direct and indirect transmission channels of climate risk drivers for firms and banks.
The results show that there are clear benefits to acting early: the short-term costs of the transition pale in comparison to the costs of unfettered climate change in the medium to long term. Additionally, the early adoption of policies to drive the transition to a zero-carbon economy also brings benefits in terms of investing in and rolling out more efficient technologies. The results also show that, although the effects of climate risk would increase moderately, on average, until 2050 if climate change is not mitigated, they would be concentrated in certain geographical areas and sectors. When comparing the effects of transition and physical risk, the outcomes indicate that physical risk would be more prominent in the long run, especially if policies to transition towards a greener economy were not introduced. Finally, the results suggest that for corporates and banks most exposed to climate risks, the impact would potentially be very significant, particularly in the absence of further climate mitigating actions. Climate change thus represents a major source of systemic risk, particularly for banks with portfolios concentrated in certain economic sectors and specific geographical areas.

KBC, banque belge avec €320 milliards d’actifs, a mis en application en avril 2021 sa nouvelle politique charbon après son annonce de février dernier. Si la banque améliore son approche sur le charbon avec un engagement à arrêter en 2030 tout financement pour la production électrique à partir de charbon, les progrès restent maigres dans l’ensemble. La seule réelle bonne nouvelle reste de fait l’adoption par les branches investissements de la banque d’une première politique. En résumé, beaucoup reste à faire pour KBC.

Ex-responsable des investissements durables chez BlackRock, Tariq Fancy est devenu l'un des critiques les plus virulents de l'investissement ESG.

Divestment has been a feature of the investment industry for decades. Attention has returned with the growth of the fossil fuel divestment campaign, among other recent environmental and social events. But what does divestment seek to achieve and does it work in practice? We carried out an objective assessment to find that it is not necessarily the most effective way to drive real change. We propose a new model for asset owners to drive change that centers on engagement and restricting the marginal supply of capital.

•An index portfolio without tobacco didn’t underperform the index with tobacco over the last 20 years
•Portfolios with very strict tobacco exclusions have outperformed the market in our 6 year study
•Tobacco is very harmful to the health of smokers, costs our economy trillions, and disproportionately hurts the most vulnerable
•There are substantial headwinds for the tobacco industry going forward – Lower cigarette consumption, global taxes, litigation

Autrefois dominant, le secteur pétrolier est aujourd'hui réduit à sa portion congrue dans les grands indices boursiers, en Europe comme aux Etats-Unis. Une bonne nouvelle pour la réduction de l'empreinte carbone des placements financiers.

From the outset environmental and social aspects have been part and parcel of the EU’s sustainable finance strategy. The need for social investments in order to achieve the sustainable development goals (SDGs) on the 2030 Agenda, as well as to realise the social internal market envisaged in the Treaty on the European Union (Article 3), is widely recognised. So is the need to ensure that businesses show respect for human rights as envisaged in the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs). There are also many indications that investors see social investments as an opportunity, just as they acknowledge that it is risky not to take social factors into account in investments. It is therefore crucial to spell out what constitutes a social investment, as has been done in the case of environmental investments.

Orienter les flux financiers vers les activités qui permettront à l’Europe d’atteindre la neutralité carbone en 2050 : pour y parvenir, un groupe d’experts vient de remettre à la Commission européenne la liste des secteurs dans lesquels il faut investir. Toutefois, le nucléaire, très peu émetteur de CO2, n’y est pas encore inclus en raison des questions que pose la gestion des déchets à long terme.