Wealth manager Coutts is targeting a 25% reduction in carbon emissions in its funds and portfolios by the end of 2021.
The commitment was made in the firm’s 2020 Sustainability Report, in which it also announced that it had achieved a 23% reduction in carbon emissions from its Coutts Invest funds this year already and is aiming to slash carbon emissions by 50% across all of its holdings by 2030.
Mohammad Kamal Syed, head of asset management, Coutts, said: “We invest with purpose and integrity, and with a keen focus on sustainability. It’s extremely important that we do this well. It’s not enough to simply sit back and do nothing to make it worse. We all have to do something tangible. Defeating climate change, for example, isn’t about what we believe, it’s about what we do.”
As part of its drive to tackle sustainability across its funds, Coutts has excluded four areas from its investments: thermal coal extraction; thermal coal energy generation; tar sand; and oil and gas exploration.
Leslie Gent, head of responsible investing, Coutts, added: “It is vital that we have a goal to work towards and that we hold ourselves accountable. Accountability for driving change towards a more sustainable planet is something we think is missing from society. To date, there has been a lot of carrot and not much stick and we believe that regulators should harden their stance to help drive real change.”
