{"id":17074,"date":"2021-12-09T10:53:31","date_gmt":"2021-12-09T09:53:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/reclaimfinance.org\/site\/?p=17074"},"modified":"2023-02-08T15:52:56","modified_gmt":"2023-02-08T14:52:56","slug":"amundis-new-climate-plan-a-damp-squib","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/reclaimfinance.org\/site\/en\/2021\/12\/09\/amundis-new-climate-plan-a-damp-squib\/","title":{"rendered":"Amundi\u2019s new climate plan \u2018a damp squib\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

Press Release<\/b><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

Paris – Wednesday, December 8, 2021 – Amundi, France\u2019s largest asset manager, announced <\/a><\/u>today its \u2018societal plan\u2019 for 2025. Reclaim Finance criticizes a \u00ab\u00a0non-announcement\u00a0\u00bb which fails to address any of Amundi’s climate-related shortcomings. The NGO calls on Amundi to clarify its position with regard to companies developing new oil and gas fields. Moreover, this announcement comes just before its merger with Lyxor, one of the main European ETF providers, confirming Amundi’s ambition to develop its passive activities, which remains the major absentee in the measures announced.<\/b><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div>

The plan, presented during a press conference in Paris, unveils a new exclusion from Amundi’s investments for companies \u00ab\u00a0exposed by more than 30%\u00a0\u00bb to unconventional hydrocarbons (1). This announcement of divestment by 2022 is a far cry from responding to the climate emergency and to Amundi’s \u00ab\u00a0net zero\u00a0\u00bb commitment. It completely ignores the need to stop all oil and gas expansion to limit global warming to 1.5\u00b0C. While Amundi does not specify the metric used, the announced threshold still allows Amundi to support a large majority of the expansion plans (nearly 75%) of oil and gas companies (2). Furthermore, the measure is based on a very narrow definition of unconventional, leaving out booming sectors such as the Arctic.<\/p>\n<\/div>

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Lucie Pinson, executive director of Reclaim Finance, remarked<\/strong>: \u00ab\u00a0Amundi holds $12 billion in the major oil and gas companies that are expanding in the Arctic. Let’s hope that this damp squib of an announcement will be followed by clearer policies that will actually put an end to the support to fossil fuel expansion, in the Arctic and elsewhere. If Amundi continues to unconditionally support companies like TotalEnergies and Gazprom despite their climate-killing projects, there is little hope for its ability to offer new, greener funds.\u00a0\u00bb<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>

Amundi commits to engage with an additional 1,000 companies to push them on climate but does not specify any of the requests made to the companies and the deadlines to implement them. However, the inconsistency between the asset management giant\u2019s commitments and its practice for the coal sector is already being denounced. In 2021, Amundi voted in favor of Glencore’s \u00ab\u00a0climate\u00a0\u00bb plan – the mining multinational continues to expand in coal.<\/p>\n<\/div>

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Lara Cuvelier, Sustainable Investments Campaigner at Reclaim Finance, commented<\/strong>:<\/span> \u00ab\u00a0At first glance, Amundi’s announcement ticks all the boxes of a credible engagement strategy (3) but on closer inspection it does not provide any of the details that would ensure its effectiveness. With more than 10 mentions of the word \u00ab\u00a0ESG\u00a0\u00bb in its press release, but no mention of the fossil fuel problem, this announcement might be funny if its implications weren\u2019t so grave. The sheer vagueness of today’s announcements undermines Amundi’s credibility as a \u00ab\u00a0leader in responsible investing\u00a0\u00bb and seems to confirm that the European passive management giant will continue to offer its clients fifty shades of green, even if it means chucking some brown in.\u00a0\u00bb<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>

Furthermore, Amundi has not made any new announcement on its passively managed funds, even though its takeover of Lyxor has positioned it as a giant in the ETF market. Reclaim Finance noted in a recent report<\/a><\/u> the lack of exclusion of coal companies in the majority of Amundi’s index funds, which by January 2022 will represent more than 15% of its assets under management.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>

Press contacts:<\/span><\/span><\/u><\/b><\/p>\n