The financial sector, and more specifically the asset management industry, can be and has been a major driving force behind sustainability in recent years, alive to its role as a facilitator of responsible investment.

Underpinning this surge in Sustainable Investing is the vital research that goes into each and every investment or portfolio. Nowhere is this more in evidence than at Schroders, a London based multinational asset management firm.

Schroders has been -in business for over 200 years and now has 32 locations around the world, meaning its diligent, best-in-class research is ideally placed to make a tangible, positive contribution to the Earth’s climate and environment.

Viewing itself as a long-term steward of capital, Schroders naturally focusses not just on current trends, but on what will be sustainable over many years.

Since the turn of the millennium, Schroders’ world-class research has enabled it to identify the risks and opportunities associated with climate change and act to influence positive change in investment behaviours.

The importance of research to making sound investment decisions cannot be overstated, which is why Schroders is committed to make the best possible tools available to its portfolio managers.

One such example is the proprietary climate progress dashboard that identifies key areas for change needed to reach the target of keeping global temperature rise below 2.0 degrees. Using dedicated research from Schroders’ Sustainable investment team, climate-related risks and opportunities can be factored in throughout the investment process to analyse companies and direct engagement and proxy voting decisions.

This is all part of Schroders’ long-standing heritage of climate action, and today it allows them to allocate their capital responsibly to those companies working in a more environmentally-friendly manner, thus encouraging sustainability across a number of industries.

For example, in 2016, introduced an analytical tool called Carbon Value at Risk (Carbon VaR) which was a major advance in helping investors measure the threat to their individual portfolios. Carbon pricing looks likely to remain a key element of government climate policies for some time to come, with implications that will become much bigger as prices inevitably climb from the low levels of recent years.

Such cross-industry collaboration is an indubitably crucial aspect of successful integration of sustainability. To this end, Schroders is involved in a number of initiatives aimed at accelerating action around climate change, both as an investor and a plc: the Carbon Action initiative Climate Action 100+ and RE100 commitment being the prime examples.

These joint initiatives show that the financial management sector is reacting to the urgency of climate change, with Schroders once again at the forefront of concerted effort sot analyse, adapt and improve, as it has been since its foundation in 1804.