As investors become increasingly concerned about climate change, Paris-based Edmond de Rothschild Asset Management steps up action to tackle global warming.

One year after joining the Net Zero Asset Managers (NZAM) initiative, Paris-based Edmond de Rothschild Asset Management has announced that €26 billion ($28 billion) of its assets under management – or 47.5 per cent of in-scope assets – will be managed in line with attaining net zero emissions by 2050.    

This strategy reflects Edmond de Rothschild’s commitment to addressing the global challenges caused by climate change.

The NZAM initiative is an international group of over 300 asset managers with around $60,000 billion in assets under management. Signatories to the initiative have committed to the goal of achieving net zero by 2050, consistent with the efforts deployed internationally to contain global warming to 1.5°C.

With this pledge, Edmond de Rothschild said it has reaffirmed its conviction that finance has a key role to play in the environmental transition. As such, it will be developing investment solutions addressing environmental and social challenges, while delivering attractive financial returns for its clients. 

Edmond de Rothschild AM has set up strategies to incorporate ESG factors into all in-scope investment processes. It has also set its own pathway – including interim net zero targets for 2030 – for each of the main asset classes covered by the group. 

Within the in-scope liquid assets managed by Edmond de Rothschild AM, 70 per cent will be aligned with a 50 per cent reduction in carbon intensity by 2030, compared with 2019. These committed liquid assets weigh €15.2 billion, the firm continued. 

Concerning its unlisted investment activities – private equity, infrastructure debt, real estate – Edmond de Rothschild will be aligning 68 per cent of in-scope assets, weighing a total €10.8 billion or 40 per cent of the total assets committed to net zero. 

The goal is to increase the percentage of assets managed in line with the attainment of net zero emissions by 2050, relying on standards relevant to each asset class.  

Nathalie Wallace, recently appointed as chief responsible officer, highlighted some of the firm’s strategies to finance and invest in assets believed to offer solutions to climate change, including the infrastructure debt strategy BRIDGE in Belgium which has refinanced a battery storage system, or its Gingko Private Equity strategy, which specialises in decarbonisation and regenerating industrial wastelands. 

Last year, the firm also launched a climate-focused emerging market bond fund to tackle global warming. The Edmond de Rothschild Fund EM Climate Bonds is classified under Article 9 of the EU’s Sustainable Finance Regulation (SFDR), investing primarily in green bonds in emerging markets. See more commentary here.

Edmond de Rothschild specialises in private banking and asset management, serving an international clientele of families, entrepreneurs and institutional investors. Founded in 1953, the group, which has more than SFr163 billion ($179 billion) in assets under management.