AP4 announces today a continued action in decarbonizing its Equity Portfolio
The Fourth Swedish National Fund (AP4), one of Sweden’s leading pension funds with US$35 billion assets under management, continues to reduce climate risk in its global equity portfolio by investing in low carbon strategies. AP4 intends to use MSCI Low Carbon Indexes as benchmarks for its low carbon strategies.
Mats Andersson, CEO of AP4, commented, “We are delighted to work with MSCI, whose products we hope will help take low carbon investing further into the mainstream. We are confident that this approach can offer an alternative source of return while working for the public good.”
Remy Briand, Managing Director and Global Head of Research at MSCI said, “AP4 has spearheaded investment thinking and behavior on addressing carbon risk. We are proud to license them our MSCI Low Carbon indexes as the benchmarks for their allocation to low carbon strategies and we look forward to working together on future innovations.”
AP4 intends to benchmark its regional equity portfolios against MSCI Low Carbon Leaders Indexes in Europe, Emerging Markets, North America and Pacific. The equity portfolio in Asia Pacific (ex-Japan) will track the MSCI Low Carbon Target Index.
AP4 was an early adopter of the low carbon approach and its first investment in a low carbon strategy in 2012. In 2014, AP4 allocated EUR 1bn to follow the MSCI Low Carbon Leaders Index when it was launched. As one of four founders of the Portfolio Decarbonization Coalition (PDC), AP4 has played a leading role in the campaign to get asset owners to reduce the carbon footprint of their investments.
Stockholm, June 15 2016