Hills Sustainability
THEME: SUSTAINABILITY
29 March 2022 Financial Analysts Journal Volume 78, Issue 2

Net-Zero Carbon Portfolio Alignment

  1. Patrick Bolton
  2. Marcin Kacperczyk
  3. Frédéric Samama
This article outlines a methodology to help passive and active investors align portfolios with a science-based carbon budget, providing an exit roadmap for carbon-intensive corporates.
Read the Complete Article in the Financial Analysts Journal CFA Institute Member Content

Overview

We outline a simple and robust methodology to align portfolios with a science-based, carbon budget consistent with maintaining a temperature rise below 1.5 °C with 83% probability. We show how to keep the tracking error at a negligible level. This approach works for both passive and active managers. It also establishes an exit roadmap for carbon-intensive corporates, thereby generating a form of competition to decarbonize within each sector. We also discuss four sources of risks: uncertainty around a rapidly shrinking carbon budget, time impacts on decarbonization rates, implementation risk due to market-wide selling pressure, and uncertainty about taxes on polluting companies.

We're using cookies, but you can turn them off in Privacy Settings. Otherwise, you are agreeing to our use of cookies. Learn more in our Privacy Policy.