‘Greening’ investor portfolios has done little to slash emissions, UBS warns

The “greening” of investors’ portfolios has had little impact on the actual decarbonising of the economy, investment bank UBS warned today, as it called for a significant acceleration of financial efforts to tackle environmental collapse.

In a new ‘Green Inflection Point’ report, analysts at the Swiss bank said that efforts by global financial institutions to divest from high-pollution firms and “incorporate responsible sustainability practices” had yielded little real-world impact on efforts to slash carbon emissions.

“While these have been necessary steps in raising awareness and altering behaviours, they are by no means sufficient to deal with the threats we now face,” said Mike Ryan, head of UBS sustainability and impact institute wrote.

“The “greening” of portfolios may have allowed investors to align their investment holdings with their own values and preferences, but it has actually done little to decarbonize the real economy.”

The bank said that investors now must focus on “change and decarbonisation” in order to drive more significant action on tackling emissions. 

The report comes after global heads of state looked to coral global financial firms into pumping cash into sustainable infrastructure projects at the COP27 finance day yesterday.

U.N. experts published a list of projects worth $120bn that investors could back to help poorer countries cut emissions and adapt to the impacts of global warming.