Six insights on investing for net zero

The briefing outlines six insights for investors to drive net-zero transitions in the oil and gas, agricultural commodities, steel, and cement sectors. It emphasizes that while divestment is a common strategy, coordinated engagement to prevent new investments in polluting assets, promote sector-wide transitions, and influence value chains is more likely to achieve real-economy emission reductions. The authors suggest that investors should push for concrete actions, such as carbon capture projects in cement or production decreases in oil and gas, rather than relying solely on general emission trajectories.

• Immediate action is required to prevent the lock-in of polluting assets, as full implementation of new production methods will take decades. Investors should demand that companies avoid new investments in long-lived polluting assets and ensure that current reinvestments in heavy industry are compatible with technology pathways leading to net-zero.
• Investors can accelerate the transition by engaging with value chains to create markets for low-carbon materials. This includes encouraging the transport and construction sectors to absorb the higher costs of green steel and green cement, and working with food value chain companies to incorporate the costs of sustainable production and eliminate deforestation.
• Investment strategies must prioritize sector-wide alignment over isolated company actions to avoid 'leakage' where polluting assets are simply offloaded. In the oil and gas sector, this means preventing the sale of assets to actors who will not reduce emissions; in agriculture, it means addressing unsustainable practices in regions rather than just avoiding them.
• The effectiveness of divestment versus engagement in the oil and gas sector remains unclear, as divestment from public stocks shows weak evidence of impacting the cost of capital. However, divestment may still reduce the industry's social license and political influence. A more direct approach for investors is to refuse to finance debt for new oil and gas exploration and development.
• Investors should move beyond general emission trajectories and science-based targets to demand specific, concrete commitments. Examples include setting targets for the number of carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) projects in the cement sector or the proportion of oil and gas fields implementing planned production decreases.

APA

Maltais, A., Gardner, T., Godar, J., Lazarus, M., Mete, G., & Olsson, O. (2021). Six insights on investing for net zero. Stockholm Environment Institute. https://www.sei.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/sei-brief-six-insights-net-zero-maltais-281021.pdf

Chicago

Maltais, Aaron, Toby Gardner, Javier Godar, Michael Lazarus, Gökçe Mete, and Olle Olsson. Six insights on investing for net zero. Stockholm Environment Institute, 2021. https://www.sei.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/sei-brief-six-insights-net-zero-maltais-281021.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=Maltais |first1=Aaron |last2=Gardner |first2=Toby |last3=Godar |first3=Javier |last4=Lazarus |first4=Michael |last5=Mete |first5=Gökçe |last6=Olsson |first6=Olle |title=Six insights on investing for net zero |publisher=Stockholm Environment Institute |date=October 2021 |url=https://www.sei.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/sei-brief-six-insights-net-zero-maltais-281021.pdf |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{maltais2021six, author = {Maltais, Aaron and Gardner, Toby and Godar, Javier and Lazarus, Michael and Mete, Gökçe and Olsson, Olle}, title = {{Six insights on investing for net zero}}, institution = {Stockholm Environment Institute}, year = {2021}, month = oct, url = {https://www.sei.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/sei-brief-six-insights-net-zero-maltais-281021.pdf}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }