FinanceMap scores this financial institution in the following areas. Please navigate to the relevant tab for in-depth analysis
FinanceMap assesses these portfolios for this financial institution. Please navigate to the relevant tab for in-depth analysis.
UBS’s has oversight and approves the firm’s sustainability and impact objectives, and several board committees have climate responsibilities. Management-level committees are assigned various climate-related responsibilities, including the Sustainability and Climate Task Force, which monitors progress and provides assurance that climate risks and opportunities are sufficiently managed.
UBS outlines the climate-related risks and opportunities it considers relevant over different time horizons, and has clearly described the processes used to determine which risks and opportunities could have a material financial impact on the organization. The organization is transparent about climate-related risks on its lending, advisory, or investment business activities.
UBS is transparent about how it has considered the impact of climate-related risks and opportunities on its corporate strategy planning over different business areas, including products and services and supply chain. The organization appears to have tested the resilience of its business strategy using a range of climate scenarios, and in 2022 participated in a climate risk stress test exercise and PACTA climate alignment testing. In 2023 it enhanced its internal scenario analysis and climate stress testing as well. UBS states that its climate scenario analyses informs its risk management responses, but has not disclosed what these responses are.
UBS clearly outlines its processes for identifying and assessing climate-related risks, and discloses its sector-level heatmap analyses for both physical and transition risks.
UBS outlines risk management approaches for several different risk types it has identified. UBS appears to integrate climate risk through its risk management framework, including using its heatmap analysis to enhance its quantitative risk appetite.
UBS provides various key metrics used to measure and manage climate-related risks and opportunities, including financing towards managing risks and opportunities, the percentage of its lending portfolio exposed to increased risk, and the incorporation of material climate-related risks into remuneration policies. The organization fully discloses Scope 1 and 2 emissions, as well as some Scope 3 emissions. It has also disclosed some Scope 3 Category 15 emissions, disclosing absolute emissions for several sectors along with some disclosure of facilitated emissions as well.
UBS is a founding member of the UN convened Net Zero Banking Alliance and has set a net-zero by 2050 target, committing to transitioning its lending and investment portfolios to align with net-zero by 2050 or sooner. UBS initially committed to interim targets for oil and gas, real estate, and power generation, and added another sector target for cement in 2022. In 2023 it added two more targets for the iron and steel and shipping sectors.
UBS has established coal financing exclusion policies and will not provide financing for new coal-fired power plants or companies that generate more than 20% of their revenue or power production from coal and do not have a Paris-aligned transition strategy. However, UBS does not outline criteria around expansion of existing coal mines or power plants, and does not appear to have outlined a coal phase out in line with IPCC guidance.
UBS does not appear to have made statements surrounding the need to transition away from oil in the energy mix over time and therefore appears to be actively financing new or expansionary oil projects. It has set some exclusionary policies which limit financing of unconventional oil projects, but has not set exclusions for companies that generate revenue from unconventional oil. In terms of natural gas, UBS will provide financing for conventional and unconventional activities given due diligence, with no expectations on climate transition plans from companies. UBS does have a financed emissions reduction target for the fossil fuel sector, which includes coal, oil, and gas, targeting a 70% reduction in absolute emissions by 2030.
UBS has a nuclear financing policy which requires clients to meet international safety standards, but it is unclear what its position is on nuclear power’s role in the energy transition. Furthermore, the organization has communicated support for a low-carbon economy and has increased its sustainable investment in renewables.
FinanceMap’s Climate Governance and Policies analysis assesses statements financial institutions (FIs) are making on how they are incorporating climate issues into their decision-making and operations using FinanceMap’s matrix methodology. This methodology is adapted from the Task Force on Climate-Related Financial Disclosures (TCFD) recommendations and guidelines, Net-Zero Banking Alliance (NZBA) or equivalent Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net-Zero (GFANZ) initiative reporting, and IPCC and IEA technology statements. The TCFD provide guidance on 11 recommendations across four areas which are reflected in our matrix: Governance, Strategy, Risk Management, and Metrics and Targets. Additional benchmarks have been introduced to strengthen the ambition of scoring criteria in the assessment of targets, which are supplemented by guidance from the NZBA or equivalent GFANZ initiatives.
Additionally, Science-Based Policy (SBP) benchmarks are used to measure alignment of an FIs technology positions with the science of climate change. These benchmarks are applied to an FIs internal policies on technologies including coal, oil, gas, nuclear, and renewables and also assesses its engagement with broader climate and energy policy issues such as advocacy on the role and importance of different strategy types in the future energy mix.
For each TCFD recommendation and technology, FIs statements are applied to a five point scoring scale ranging from +2 to -2, measuring alignment with the relevant benchmarks. The detailed scores for this FI are displayed below within each matrix cell.
The following table outlines the key queries and data sources, which FinanceMap uses to assess financial institutions climate governance, targets and policies. Every evidence piece is assessed on a five-point scale of -2,-1,0,1,2 or NA (not applicable)/NS (not scored). All queries, data sources, and evidence pieces are weighted against one another in a matrix system to arrive at a final top-level score. Clicking on specific cells will load the underlying evidence and information on how it has been assessed.
Fossil fuel companies are those whose primary sector falls within coal mining and services, or up-, mid-, and downstream oil and gas sectors. Green companies are defined as companies having over 75% revenue deriving from Substantial Contribution to Mitigation activities under the EU Taxonomy.
Portfolio Paris Alignment analysis of this institution's activities in this portfolio area assesses deals in 2020–2024.
Value Assessed: $180B
Sector Paris Alignment scores for the sectors to which this portfolio has exposure. FinanceMap Paris Alignment analysis is limited to the automotive, upstream fossil fuel, and power sectors.
Fossil fuel companies are those whose primary sector falls within coal mining and services, or up-, mid-, and downstream oil and gas sectors. Green companies are defined as companies having over 75% revenue deriving from Substantial Contribution to Mitigation activities under the EU Taxonomy.
Portfolio Paris Alignment analysis of this institution's activities in this portfolio area assesses deals in 2020–2024.
Value Assessed: $204B
Sector Paris Alignment scores for the sectors to which this portfolio has exposure. FinanceMap Paris Alignment analysis is limited to the automotive, upstream fossil fuel, and power sectors.
Fossil fuel companies are those whose primary sector falls within coal mining and services, or up-, mid-, and downstream oil and gas sectors. Green companies are defined as companies having over 75% revenue deriving from Substantial Contribution to Mitigation activities under the EU Taxonomy.
Portion of AUM Assessed: $309B
| Holding Name | Contribution to Sector Production |
|---|---|
| Enel SpA | 21.7% |
| Engie SA | 14.7% |
| Iberdrola SA | 8.2% |
| Centrais Eletricas Brasileiras SA - Eletrobras | 2.9% |
| Entergy Corp | 2.8% |
| Nextera Energy Inc | 2.7% |
| Kansai Electric Power Co Inc | 2.6% |
| RWE AG | 2.5% |
| EDP SA | 2.2% |
| Korea Electric Power Corp | 2.1% |
| Holding Name | Contribution to Sector Production |
|---|---|
| Toyota Motor Corp | 12.0% |
| BYD Co Ltd | 10.4% |
| Stellantis NV | 10.4% |
| Volkswagen AG | 8.0% |
| Honda Motor Co Ltd | 6.0% |
| Kia Corp | 5.7% |
| General Motors Co | 4.7% |
| Suzuki Motor Corp | 4.6% |
| Geely Automobile Holdings Ltd | 4.5% |
| Great Wall Motor Co Ltd | 4.4% |
| Holding Name | Contribution to Sector Production |
|---|---|
| Glencore PLC | 31.2% |
| Yankuang Energy Group Co Ltd | 16.5% |
| Peabody Energy Corp | 14.7% |
| Coal India Ltd | 12.7% |
| China Coal Energy Co Ltd | 10.4% |
| Alamtri Resources Indonesia Tbk PT | 3.9% |
| China Shenhua Energy Co Ltd | 2.9% |
| Whitehaven Coal Ltd | 2.3% |
| Alpha Metallurgical Resources Inc | 1.4% |
| Warrior Met Coal Inc | 1.4% |
| Holding Name | Contribution to Sector Production |
|---|---|
| TotalEnergies SE | 15.1% |
| BP PLC | 9.5% |
| PetroChina Co Ltd | 9.4% |
| Shell PLC | 8.0% |
| Petroleo Brasileiro SA Petrobras | 7.5% |
| Eni SpA | 4.2% |
| NK Lukoil PAO | 4.2% |
| Exxon Mobil Corp | 3.6% |
| Chevron Corp | 3.2% |
| Repsol SA | 2.6% |
UBS appears to be engaging with companies on climate change. It has a climate engagement framework to assess issuers’ transition plans in 7 sectors across 75 companies. It also has a structure informing engagement activities, outlining the 6 stages of its climate engagement lifecycle, along with a framework to assess companies’ alignment with net zero pathways and the net zero convergence of their transition plans. UBS has a strong engagement escalation strategy and has provided examples of escalation activities like voting against a company director on climate grounds.
The asset manager is engaging companies to transition in line with 1.5C, and is driving significant change in company behavior. For example, it engaged with PEMEX to produce a transition plan, and its engagements withMaersk led to the company validating its climate targets through SBTi. It is unclear whether UBS is actively engaging with companies on climate policy advocacy, but states that it assesses companies’ lobbying and policy advocacy. It is involved in several investor initiatives, and was involved in CA100+ collaborative engagements in 1206881 and 1910239, but does not appear to have collaborated with any climate-related investor groups in the most recent year.
UBS has described its stewardship governance structure and processes, including the Stewardship Committee, which oversees policies and ensures effectiveness of its overall stewardship approach. Its approach also considers clients’ views through regular client feedback and consultation. The asset manager is transparent about engagements, regularly disclosing engagement subjects, context, actions, and outcomes. It has disclosed all its proxy voting data and justifications, and is transparent about how voting decisions are made.
UBS has provided some examples of using shareholder authority on climate, such as voting against directors on climate grounds and co-filing shareholder resolutions. In 2024, it voted against the reappointment of an executive director and Reliance Industries, and in 2023, it voted against directors at 8 companies and co-filed a resolution on deforestation.
Insightia data suggests that UBS is broadly supportive of AGM resolutions InfluenceMap categorizes as in line with the Paris Agreement, supporting 67.3% in 2019, 71.2% in 2020, 70.8% in 2021, and 75.8% in 2022.
FinanceMap's methodology to measure the engagement process on climate was developed in consultation with several of the world's leading asset managers and uses key aspects of the UK Financial Reporting Council's 2020 Stewardship Code . The Stewardship Code was chosen to benchmark engagement quality as it provides an ambitious framework and detailed definitions of what constitutes effective engagement. FinanceMap defines the term ‘engagement’ as referring to all investor actions undertaken to influence the management strategy of the companies they own including private communications with corporate management and appointed advisors; questions at AGMs/other company meetings; comments on the company in the media; escalation and the shareholder resolution process (filing, voting behavior). FinanceMap’s methodology breaks the engagement process down into a set of sub-activities and looks for evidence associated with these across publicly available data sources.
Climate-relevance categorization of shareholder resolutions is based on the IPCC’s Special Report on 1.5°C and its concluded need for “rapid and far-reaching transitions in land, energy, industry, buildings, transport, and cities.” FinanceMap scored voting on any resolution where the intent and likely outcome is consistent with this IPCC stated need. The voting data is drawn from asset managers' disclosures to the US Security Exchange Commission (SEC), asset manager websites (including third-party websites they link to), directly from the asset managers, and through specialist voting data provider Insightia. The full list of resolutions assessed is available here.
The following table outlines the key queries and data sources, which FinanceMap uses to assess asset managers' corporate engagement programs. Every evidence piece is assessed on a five-point scale of -2,-1,0,1,2 or NA (not applicable)/NS (not scored). All queries, data sources, and evidence pieces are weighted against one another in a matrix system to arrive at a final top-level score. Clicking on specific cells will load the underlying evidence and information on how it has been assessed.
Climate Lobbying Overview: UBS appears to be engaged in the EU on climate-related finance policy, while not supporting stringent regulatory intervention. However, UBS does appear supportive of real economy policy and the energy transition.
Top-line Messaging on Climate-Related Financial Policy: UBS has communicated support for the Paris Agreement in its 2023 Sustainability Report Supplement. In 2021, 2022, and 2024 UBS Asset Management co-signed investor letters to EU leaders and governments, advocating for action to achieve net-zero by 2050. UBS has also demonstrated support for Swiss climate regulation, including the Swiss Climate and Innovation Act—which enshrines net-zero in Swiss legislation—in its Sustainability Report 2023. UBS however does not appear to support the need for climate-related finance regulation. In March 2024, UBS CEO Sergio Ermotti, opposed sustainable finance regulation in the banking sector, arguing that banks are not the ‘climate police’.
Position on Regulated Corporate Climate Disclosure: In its 2019-23 CDP responses, UBS advocated for the implementation of the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD) recommendations into disclosure frameworks, particularly in Switzerland. In its 2023 Sustainability Report, UBS also appeared to express support for the EU Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD). UBS also offered support for ambitious global sustainability standards in response to the International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB) in July 2022. In an investor statement in 2022 and in 2024, UBS Asset Management supported the implementation of the TCFD and disclosure of both 1.5 pathway-aligned transition plans, and Scopes 1, 2, and 3 emissions. In the US, UBS engaged on the SEC climate disclosure rule, meeting with Chair Gary Gensler in May 2023, but details of this engagement are unclear.
Position on Taxonomies: In a 2022 Financial Times article, a strategist at UBS supported the inclusion of gas and nuclear in the EU Taxonomy, arguing that “encouraging the use of the cleanest fossil fuels, like natural gas, over the dirtiest, such as coal, is an important step”.
Position on Climate Standards, Labels, and Benchmarks and ESG Ratings: UBS has offered broad high-level support for the EU Green Bond Standard in a website article 2022. In a November 2022 consultation response on the use of ESG or sustainability-related terms in funds’ names, UBS advocated for lower quantitative thresholds for fund names, did not support minimum safeguards in reference to the Paris Agreement Benchmark, and suggested a delay to implementation.
Position on Real Economy Climate Policy: UBS has expressed support for greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions legislation, including the Swiss Climate and Innovation Act in both its Sustainability Report 2023 Supplement, and its CDP 2023 Climate Change Response. UBS Asset Management, in an investor statement in 2024, advocated for GHG emissions standards and targets, a price on carbon and energy efficiency standards.
Position on Energy, Industry, and Land Transitions: UBS appears generally supportive of the energy transition, advocating for a transition to a low-carbon energy sector in its Sustainability Report 2023 Supplement, and in its Sustainability Report 2023 supporting CCU to decarbonize hard-to-abate sectors only, whilst recognizing limitations and conditions of CCU for overall emissions reductions. Similarly, in the aviation sector, UBS supported the use of bio-based Sustainable Aviation Fuels (SAF) in an October 2024 article. UBS Asset Management, in a 2024 investor statement, advocated for renewable energy legislation and for governments to enact economy-wide policies to transition the energy mix.
Industry Association Governance: UBS has disclosed a partial list of its industry association memberships, including the role and activity of UBS and the key outcomes and updates in 2023. However, UBS appears to exclude membership and board positions of a number of associations which are actively engaged on climate-related policy, including Bank Policy Institute, The Investment Association and International Swaps and Derivates Association.
InfluenceMap collects and assesses evidence of corporate climate policy engagement on a weekly basis, depending on the availability of information from each specific data source (for more information see our methodology). While this analysis flows through to the company’s scores each week, the summary above is updated periodically. This summary was last updated in Q4 2024.
InfluenceMap’s methodology for assessing lobbying on climate finance policy closely follows InfluenceMap’s established methodology on climate policy engagement, which is used extensively by investors, including via the Climate Action 100+ investor engagement process. Our full methodology can be found here.
Under our lobbying assessment, InfluenceMap considers engagement on all financial policies which intersect with climate issues, as well as “real economy” climate change policies.
The analysis takes into account both the engagement of the financial institution and the activities of industry associations they hold membership of. InfluenceMap’s methodology covers seven publicly available data sources, searching for evidence of engagement and corporate positioning since 2017. To determine the policy issues within the scope of the analysis, InfluenceMap breaks down policy engagement into a series of subcategories, or 'queries'. These are designed to cover high-level issues relating to the importance of sustainable finance, as well as more specific areas of sustainable finance policymaking. InfluenceMap’s research process searches for evidence of an organization's engagement with each policy issue, across each of the data sources.
The following table outlines the key queries and data sources, which InfluenceMap uses to assess financial institutions' policy engagement. Every evidence piece is assessed on a five-point scale of -2,-1,0,1,2 or NA (not applicable)/NS (not scored). All queries, data sources, and evidence pieces are weighted against one another in a matrix system to arrive at a final top-level score. Clicking on specific cells will load the underlying evidence and information on how it has been assessed.
In this section, we depict graphically the relationships the corporation has with trade associations, federations, advocacy groups and other third parties who may be acting on their behalf to influence climate change policy. Each of the columns above represents one relationship the corporation appears to have with such a third party.
In these columns, the top, dark section represents the strength of the relationship the corporation has with the influencer. For example if a corporation's senior executive also held a key role in the trade association, we would deem this to be a strong relationship and it would be on the far left of the chart above, with the weaker ones to the right. Click on these grey shaded upper sections for details of these relationships. The middle section contains a link to the organization score details of the influencer concerned, so you can see the details of its climate change policy influence. Click on the middle sections for for details of the trade associations. The lower section contains the organization score of that influencer, the lower the more negatively it is influencing climate policy.
