"NYC Pension Funds to Drop Asset Managers Without Strong Net Zero Action Plans", 23 April 2025

"New York City Comptroller Brad Lander announced that he was increasing demands on asset managers for the city’s pension system – collectively the fourth largest public pension plan in the U.S. – to align their investments with the city’s climate goals, including requirements to submit strong net zero action plans, and to set expectations for all portfolio companies to set full value chain net zero goals...

Lander said: "Our new standards demand that the retirement systems’ managers strengthen their Net Zero plans consistent with their fiduciary duty—or we will find new asset managers who will.”

New York City’s pension funds represent over $280 billion in assets, and include the New York City Employees’ Retirement System (NYCERS), Teachers’ Retirement System (TRS), and Board of Education Retirement System (BERS). The Comptroller is the investment advisor to and custodian of assets of the city’s pension funds.

According to Lander, the new expectations are being set in response to address the impact of moves by the Trump administration to roll back climate progress, and to cut funding for climate infrastructure and disaster preparedness...

The new standards for asset managers follows the launch by the NYC pension boards in 2022 of a Net Zero Implementation Plan, including a goal to achieve net zero emissions by 2040. As part of the plan, asset managers were required to submit net zero plans by the end of June 2025.

According to Lander, the net zero plans will be evaluated based on requirements for asset managers to engage portfolio companies to drive real economy decarbonization, rather than just decarbonizing portfolios, to incorporate material climate change-related risks and opportunities in investment decision-making, and to put in place a stewardship strategy addressing prioritization and escalation of engagement and voting to advance decarbonization.

The Comptroller also said that asset managers should set expectations for portfolio companies to measure and report Scopes 1, 2 and 3 emissions and to set clear net zero goals by decreasing those emissions, in addition to adopt their own net zero plans to meet short-, medium- and long-term climate goals, align their future capital expenditures and lobbying with climate goals and targets, and to consider the impacts from transitioning to a lower-carbon business model on workers and communities .

In a letter sent to the NYC pension funds’ asset managers, Lander said that if managers that fail to submit net zero plans or submit plans that fail to meet the standards, the Comptroller’s office will recommend that the pension boards “put the investment strategy out to bid.”

Lander said: “As Trump systematically guts progress on climate, even as we witness hotter temperatures and more disasters each year, cities like New York must push forward. We won’t bow to pressure to move away from our commitments to decarbonization.”"