Evli has published its new climate targets, which are the most ambitious yet in the company’s history and aim to make a real impact in the industry. At the same time, Evli has strengthened the role of sustainability in its operations with the first ever appointment of its Head of Sustainability to the board of its fund management company.
Evli aims to halve the carbon footprint of its investments by 2030 provided that the investment environment allows for it, and sets its sights on becoming a carbon-neutral asset manager by 2050. This target applies to emissions from both Evli’s own operations and from its investments.
“We are taking these steps to ensure that our operations are in line with the 2015 Paris Agreement target to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius. This is very important to Evli and we want to take responsibility through concrete actions,” says Outi Helenius, Evli’s Head of Sustainability.
According to Helenius, Evli recognises that a credible long-term carbon neutrality target needs to be supported by sufficiently ambitious milestones based on the latest knowledge about climate change and the measures required to reduce emissions.
As a result, Evli sets the following milestones for its operations:
1) Evli aims to achieve carbon neutrality for emissions from its own operations (Scope 1 and 2) by 2025 at the latest.
2) Evli sets an interim target of a 50% reduction in indirect emissions from investments by 2030, provided that the investment environment allows for it. It will be using 2019 as the reference year.
3) Evli will establish a Working Committee for the years 2021-2022 in order to assess how the investment-related interim target can be reached through real world carbon emission reductions and to ensure that it will be in line with the Paris Agreement. In this assessment work, we will use, among others, a Science-Based Targets (SBT) framework.
“The global economy is still very carbon-intensive, which is why broadly diversified investment portfolios are still carbon-intensive. As wealth managers, we must also take into account our obligations to our clients and their individual investment objectives. It is undeniable that meeting the Paris Agreement targets requires immediate action to reduce emissions. We strongly believe that it is in the long-term interests of our clients to align our operations with international climate targets,” adds Helenius.
Roadmap to a carbon-neutral wealth manager
Evli has developed a roadmap for reaching its targets, according to which the development of targets and emissions is monitored and the practical alignment of the targets is reviewed at least every five years.
The roadmap for 2021-2025 is structured along the following lines:
- Building a snapshot
- Development of climate risk management.
- Updating the exclusion process
- Engagement
- Systematic analysis of objectives