Recent statements from Fidelity around climate engagements are important: as a key player in oil sands financing, the asset manager(s) has an outsized role to play in green house gas emissions impact. We applaud recent Fidelity International (FIL) statements around engaging at board-room level for implementation of ESG. Our analysis indicates that the Fidelity asset management companies brought together are the biggest global equity owners of Canadian oil sands.
Thus, such engagement decisions - if consistently executed - will have an outsized effect of the currently unabated expansion of this type of particularly dirty hydrocarbon production.
This is important for CO2 emissions reduction: we (and important investors, please see the full report) would opine that a strong increase of oil sands production over the next decade as in the last may not align well with the IEA’s recent net-zero 2050 scenarios.
This is an outsized opportunity for FIL and FMR to showcase a change of trajectory in climate policies. The proof of these recent ESG commitments will be in the oil sands pudding, to paraphrase the old expression.
