Responsible investment manager survey 2025
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Steady progress, quiet evolution
Despite the narrative around the impacts of Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) backlash, our survey results indicate that many aspects of responsible investment (RI) practices continued to evolve in 2025. Overall, the results point to an industry that is adapting rather than retreating. Managers are evolving climate analysis, embedding stewardship processes and strengthening their own governance. For investors, this underscores a key message:
There is progress, but variation remains across managers based in different regions.
Questions remain about whether managers’ RI practices will be sufficient to address financially material issues. The political and regulatory background over the next year is likely to remain challenging. As a result, it’s more important than ever to ensure that asset owners understand how their managers are approaching RI.
What actions can asset owners take?
- See how your managers measure up against peers through our survey results.
- Engage with your managers to drive improvements in stewardship practices.
- Meet other managers driving change: discover which managers have leading RI approaches and how their approach could meet your investment objectives.
For a deeper conversation about your managers' RI approaches
Contact the teamBoard oversight is improving but training lags behind
Board oversight of ESG and/or stewardship is now near universal (93% of managers), although North American managers lag behind UK and European peers.
Training gaps: mandatory RI training has increased since our 2024 survey for both staff and board members. However, for staff it is widespread (81% of managers), yet at board level it remains low (27%), raising questions about the quality of RI oversight.
Oversight is effective only if it’s informed, so the gap between board level and staff RI training matters.
Broad adoption, but gaps remain
Most managers now use quantitative and/or qualitative physical and transition risk climate scenario analysis for at least some strategies, but 14% of managers still do not use climate scenario analysis at all.
Scenario analysis is an important tool for climate risk management. Lack of adoption could signal gaps in understanding of climate risks in portfolios.
Progress stalls, regional variation
Progress has stalled: 66% of managers are working towards net zero for some or all assets, slightly below the 70% in our 2024 survey.
Mid-to-large managers (between £250bn and £1trn assets under management) are more active, while North American managers lag UK and European managers.
Net zero implementation continues to be widespread but has stalled. However, it varies by region and size of the manager.
Company engagement dominates, policy advocacy is more limited
Of the managers that confirmed they are working towards net zero for at least some asset under management, company engagement dominates net zero efforts.
While engaging with companies is a widespread part of approaches towards net zero, UK and European managers are more likely than North American managers to use broader levers such as policy advocacy.
The top three approaches are:
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95%Engaging with companies/other issuers to transition
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78%Using and promoting science-based target approaches by companies/other issuers
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71%Relying on natural decarbonisation (through government policy, technological change, customer demand etc)
Engagement with regulators and policymakers to promote system-level decarbonisation (selected by 64% of managers) is quite common in the UK and Europe, but is limited in North America.
Improving processes, focus on objectives lags
Engagement processes are improving - the proportion of managers saying they carried out each engagement step we asked about for all engagements increased compared to our 2024 survey. However, setting objectives and tracking progress against them still lag recording of engagements.
More managers are improving their engagement processes. However, setting objectives still lags, indicating that for some managers, engagements are likely to be less effective.
Lack of focus on real-world impacts, risk of inconsistencies
Managers’ policy advocacy remains focused more on regulation and disclosures than on policies on the real economy and providing sustainable finance. This means opportunities for having a real-world impact using policy advocacy are being missed.
Nearly 1 in 5 managers have no process to review the consistency of their policy positions with those of their trade associations. This proportion is higher for North American managers compared to European and UK managers.
Managers’ policy advocacy remains less focused on real-world impact, and for many managers it is also at risk of being unintentionally at odds with trade associations that they are members of. Policy advocacy could be better focused on addressing systemic issues affecting portfolios.
Steady, not sudden
Most managers (58%) reported no meaningful change in how they consider RI-related issues over the 12 months to 30 June 2025, signalling continuity even amidst ESG debate. No managers indicated that they are giving RI-related issues less consideration overall, suggesting that RI is an established part of the investment process.
Practical improvements
Where there was reported change, it spanned the full range of options we provided. However, most focus was on integrating RI into investment processes (50% of managers), refining specific products or strategies (35%) and changing engagement approaches (24%).
More targeted approaches from some managers
Some managers (22%) are tailoring RI more by strategy, asset class or region rather than applying a one-size fits all approach. The managers that have evolved in this way over the year are more concentrated in the mid-to-large managers (£250bn to £1trn in assets under management).
The trend is one of evolution rather than sudden change or backtracking. Stability and incremental improvement offer reassurance that, overall, managers are balancing ambition with practicality, but asset owners should ask how these refinements translate into outcomes.
Transition expectations
20% more managers now expect a disorderly climate transition compared to our 2024 survey – this represents the vast majority of managers (77%), up from 57% in 2024.
While this is perhaps not surprising since we didn't specify an end-date for the transition, it is rather alarming – yes there has been progress towards transition, but national implementation plans have been slow. Transition outcomes are defined as:
- Orderly transition: global emissions decline rapidly, meeting net zero goals without significant disruption.
- Disorderly transition: delayed or uneven action leads to abrupt shifts and volatility, particularly as a result of transition risks materialising.
- Failed transition: insufficient action results in sustained high emissions and more extreme physical risks materialising.
Net zero ambitions
66% of managers said they had a net zero target, slightly lower than our previous survey (70%). Most of these managers (73%) haven’t amended and aren’t rethinking their targets.
When asked about the barriers to aligning portfolios with net zero, the main barriers managers selected from our menu of options were:
The topical area of litigation or regulatory risk was more of an issue for North American managers (36%) compared with 15% in the UK and 11% in Europe.
As most managers believe that a disorderly transition to net zero is the most likely outcome, their climate strategy matters more than ever. Understanding how managers are navigating the challenges of aligning with net zero is critical for asset owners to assess whether their net zero ambitions are realistic and actionable.
Participation rising selectively
Initiatives like Nature 100 saw growth - 24% of managers vs 17% in 2024 - though overall participation in other RI initiatives (we asked about Climate Action 100+, CDP, IIGCC, The Investor Forum, Nature 100 and PRI Advance) remained broadly flat.
Regional variation
Around 20% of managers withdrew from an ESG or net zero initiative over the 12 months to 30 June 2025, largely in North America and the UK, with none from Europe. From the options we provided, legal and regulatory concerns were drivers specifically for North American managers. However, most managers chose to provide a bespoke reason, which varied from structural, operational and strategic to external and reputational reasons.
Views on collaborative organisations
Managers have mixed expectations for the future role of key initiatives.
Expectations for groups like the Net Zero Asset Managers (NZAM) initiative and Climate Action 100+ (CA100+) were mixed, and around a third of the managers said they were unsure about whether these initiatives would play a significant role in the investment industry over the next five years.
That uncertainty may ease in our next survey given NZAM was consulting on a revised commitment statement while we were collecting responses.
Asset owners should probe which initiatives managers are actively participating in and how these align with portfolio objectives.
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Our findings are drawn from the responses of 120 managers received between September and November 2025.
The largest number of responses (around 40% of the total) are from UK-based investment managers, including the major institutional UK managers, followed by North America, Europe and then Asia. Since the number of responses from Asian managers is low, most of the regional comparisons in our findings do not include them. We make comparisons with the survey results from our 2024 report (119 managers responded between April and June 2024).
Not all managers have answered every question, particularly in cases where the question is not applicable to every manager. We have made it clear where results quoted are drawn from substantially fewer than 120 managers.
For a deeper conversation about your managers' RI approaches
Contact the team
