Another asset owner has switched managers in response to the pullback from climate initiatives.
UK-based foundation Nesta Trust has taken £120m of assets – over a quarter of its portfolio – away from Northern Trust Asset Management, in a move it says demonstrates “that asset managers stepping back from climate commitments face real commercial fallout”.
Northern Trust AM confirmed at the start of 2025 that it had withdrawn from investor networks Climate Action 100+ (CA100+) and the Net Zero Asset Managers initiative (NZAM).
It was one of several financial institutions to step back from high-profile engagement efforts on decarbonisation, following pressure from US lawmakers.
“Nesta Trust determined that maintaining funds with Northern Trust was incompatible with its mission to build a sustainable future,” it said in a statement.
Amundi will take over the passive global equity mandate because, according to Nesta, the French investment giant “has maintained its climate commitments, including membership of Climate Action 100+ and its signature of the NZAM initiative”.
Eric Bramoullé, chief executive officer of Amundi UK, said asset owners were “increasingly” seeking managers that invested in a way that reflected their responsible investment commitments.
Nesta’s chief investment officer, Jenny Segal, expressed “hope that our disinvestment shows that asset owners do not have to silently accept a roll-back of climate commitments”.
The decision “shows others they can hold their fund managers to a high standard,” she added.
A number of other asset owners have publicly dropped their asset managers in response to withdrawals from climate initiatives in recent years.
Dutch pension fund PFZW announced last September that it would no longer invest in equity funds from BlackRock because of the manager’s reluctance to support sustainability proposals at annual meetings.
A spokesperson for PGGM, the scheme’s pensions manager, said at the time that it was “getting harder to align with American investment managers on voting”.
The Sierra Club Foundation has also ditched BlackRock, citing climate-aligned concerns.
Last month, New York City’s pension funds launched a rebidding process for its manager, amid calls for it to drop BlackRock over its climate record.
The city’s former Comptroller, Brad Lander, who stepped down at the end of last year, recommended a change in manager, and his replacement, Mark Levine, is now retendering.
Early last year Denmark’s AkademikerPension terminated its relationship with State Street Global Advisors (now known as State Street Investment Management), partly for sustainability reasons, saying its asset managers “must align with our fundamental approach and way we see the world”.
The UK’s workplace pension scheme The People’s Pension divested almost all of its £28bn allocation to State Street around the same time last year in favour of Amundi and Invesco, as part of an effort to prioritise “sustainability, active stewardship and long-term value creation”.
