This move reflects our belief that the financial sector must contribute to tackling environmental challenges and follows the decision of UBP Asset Management (Europe) to sign up to the Net Zero Asset Managers initiative in December 2021 with the aim of reducing the carbon emissions of its portfolios and encouraging investments in climate solutions to reach net zero emissions by 2050 or sooner.
“By becoming a CDP signatory, we aim to encourage a growing number of corporates to assess and disclose their environmental data and to design clear strategies to manage their impact on the climate, water and forests,” says Karine Jesiolowski, Head of Responsible Investment, Asset Management.
UBP is joining the growing ranks of over 590 investors with more than USD 110 trillion in assets under management and more than 150 large purchasers with a procurement spend of over USD 4 trillion. Every year they call on thousands of companies, cities, states and regions to collect and disclose environmental data.
“The importance of investor engagement to drive disclosure cannot be overstated. Climate change, water security and deforestation present material risks to investments, and companies that are failing to disclose their impact risk are trailing behind their competitors in their access to capital,” stresses Laurent Babikian, Global Director of Capital Markets at CDP.
Indeed, for investors like us, access to consistent and comparable environmental data has now become key to guiding our investment decisions. It allows us to successfully navigate the growing risks and seize emerging opportunities in this new environment. Ultimately, this helps us to contribute to a more resilient, net zero, nature-positive economy by channelling capital towards responsible investments.
CDP has built up a strong reputation as the leading disclosure platform that has successfully driven ever-increasing transparency and engagement on environmental risks worldwide. In 2021, over 14,000 organisations around the world disclosed data through CDP, including more than 13,000 companies worth over 64% of global market capitalisation, and over 1,100 cities, states and regions.