Overview
Climate Action 100+ launched in 2017 as an investor-led initiative with a specific strategic logic: rather than divesting from high-emitting companies, institutional investors should use their ownership stakes to demand better climate governance and more credible decarbonisation plans. It was a deliberate pivot from exclusion to engagement, a signal that the investment community was prepared to act as an active owner rather than a passive capital allocator.
The initiative focuses on a focus list of approximately 150 companies, selected because they are among the world’s largest corporate greenhouse gas emitters, and because their decisions on decarbonisation will be pivotal to whether the world meets the goals of the Paris Agreement. These are mostly energy, utilities, materials, and heavy industry companies. Think BP, Shell, Rio Tinto, ArcelorMittal, and similar names.
Five global investor networks coordinate the initiative: the Asia Investor Group on Climate Change (AIGCC), Ceres, the Investor Group on Climate Change (IGCC), the Institutional Investors Group on Climate Change (IIGCC), and the Principles for Responsible Investment (PRI). This structure gives the initiative genuine geographic breadth and avoids it being perceived as a purely Anglo-American project.
How It Works: The Net Zero Company Benchmark
The primary tool Climate Action 100+ uses to evaluate progress is the Net Zero Company Benchmark (NZCB). The benchmark assesses focus-list companies across a range of indicators: whether they have a credible net-zero commitment, whether they have disclosed a transition plan, whether their capital expenditure is aligned with Paris-consistent scenarios, whether they have reduced their lobbying against climate policy.
The benchmark creates a public scorecard, which is where the communications impact lies. A company that scores poorly on NZCB criteria faces a reputational signal to a broad investor audience, not just the CA100+ members directly engaged with it. The benchmark draws on data from CDP, the Transition Pathway Initiative, and other public sources, making it a consolidation point for existing disclosure frameworks rather than a parallel system.
Engagement in this context means direct dialogue between lead investors and company boards and management. A CA100+ engagement typically involves a small group of institutional investors, often coordinated by a lead investor with a significant stake, meeting with the company to discuss governance of climate risks, target-setting, and capital allocation. The ask is specific: adopt a net-zero by 2050 target, disclose in line with TCFD, and align your lobbying activities with your climate commitments.
Engagement vs. Exclusion: The Strategic Debate
The engagement-over-exclusion strategy is intellectually coherent but politically contested. Proponents argue that divesting from a company doesn’t reduce its emissions, it just transfers the shares to a less climate-conscious investor. If you own the stock, you can vote at AGMs, file shareholder resolutions, and have direct access to management. Divestment sacrifices that leverage.
Critics counter that engagement can become a tool for delay, allowing high-emitting companies to maintain investor relationships while moving slowly on actual decarbonisation. The Stranded Assets argument adds another dimension: investors who engage rather than divest remain exposed if regulatory or market forces eventually render fossil fuel assets unviable.
Climate Action 100+ sits at the heart of this debate, and its results have been mixed. Some focus-list companies have adopted net-zero targets and improved disclosure in direct response to CA100+ pressure. Others have made commitments that observers, including the Science Based Targets Initiative, have found inadequate. The initiative itself has faced political pressure in the United States, where several major signatories reduced their participation citing fiduciary and antitrust concerns.