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Contact: montrealcarbonpledge@unpri.org |
With the Montréal Carbon Pledge, investors pledge to measure and publicly disclose the carbon footprint of their investment portfolios on an annual basis. The Montréal Carbon Pledge allows investors (asset owners and investment managers) to formalize their commitments to the goals of the recently announced Portfolio Decarbonization Coalition, which will mobilize investors to measure, disclose and reduce their portfolio carbon footprints at the scale of $100 billion by the December 2015 UN Climate Change Conference.
To meet the requirements of the Montréal Carbon Pledge, signatories must annually measure the carbon footprint of an equities portfolio, or portion thereof. The Montréal Carbon Pledge also considers the carbon footprint of other asset classes, including private equity. Disclosure can be done through a website, annual report, sustainability report, responsible investment report or other publicly visible client/beneficiary reporting channel.
The pledge is open to all asset owners and investment managers – being a PRI signatory is not needed. The commitments these investors make will allow the investment community to compare an increasing amount of portfolios to global benchmarks, to identify priority areas and actions for reducing emissions and to track progress in making those reductions. Actions that investors take after measuring their carbon footprint vary, from monitoring emissions regularly to ensure these are tracked and understood, to investing in low-carbon solutions, and integrating environmental analysis into mainstream investment processes.
The Pledge was launched on 25 September 2014 in Montréal. 101 investors have meanwhile signed the Montréal Carbon Pledge (status 20 November 2015).
Pledge:
"As institutional investors, we have a duty to act in the best long-term interests of our beneficiaries. In this fiduciary role, we believe that there are long-term investment risks associated with greenhouse gas emissions, climate change and carbon regulation.
In order to better understand, quantify and manage the carbon and climate change related impacts, risks and opportunities in our investments, it is integral to measure our carbon footprint. Therefore, we commit, as a first step, to measure and disclose the carbon footprint of our investments annually with the aim of using this information to develop an engagement strategy and/or identify and set carbon footprint reduction targets."