There has been a lot going on in geopolitics and financial markets in recent months, so treasury professionals can be forgiven if they missed an ESG-related development at the end of February 2026. That was the relaunch of the Net Zero Asset Managers initiative (NZAM), the voluntary framework for asset managers to set out how they support the goal of net zero emissions through their investment activities. The initiative had been paused for more than a year, and other net zero initiatives had shut down completely, so its return is notable in itself. More important, however, is that it has come back in a slightly different form.
NZAM was originally launched in 2020 and grew quickly, at one stage including well over 300 signatories representing a large share of global assets under management. Its purpose was to provide a framework for asset managers to commit to supporting net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 or sooner, in line with efforts to limit global warming to 1.5°C, while also reporting on how that ambition was being implemented across portfolios over time.
However, in January 2025, NZAM announced that it was suspending its activities and removing its signatory commitment statement while it conducted a review. The explanation given was that the initiative needed to respond to recent developments in the United States and to reflect differing legal, regulatory and client expectations across jurisdictions. That was diplomatic wording, but the broader context was fairly clear: financial climate alliances had come under growing political and legal pressure in the US, and several large asset management firms had already pulled out or were reassessing their involvement.
The relaunched version of NZAM is not a complete return to the old model and comes with an updated commitment statement, which the initiative describes as more practical, globally inclusive and better aligned with the realities in which asset managers operate. More than 250 managers signed up to the revised framework on relaunch, so it still has meaningful backing, but the wording of the commitment is less prescriptive than before.
The original commitment placed more emphasis on aligning assets under management with net zero by 2050 and on working consistently with the 1.5°C objective, while the updated version puts more weight on supporting clients’ long-term financial objectives, managing climate-related risks and opportunities, and acting within fiduciary, regulatory and market constraints. The initiative still points towards net zero, but it now gives signatories more room to interpret how, and how far, they do so in practice.
That change will inevitably be viewed in different ways. It’s hard not to agree with critics that the revised commitment has been watered down, and there is some basis for that view: explicit references that gave the earlier framework more force have been softened or removed, and some of the largest global names have not returned. It may therefore look like a compromise, designed to keep the initiative viable in a more hostile ESG environment.
Others will likely see the changes differently, taking the view that the earlier version struggled to accommodate the realities that asset managers operate in and that a looser framework is not a retreat from climate considerations, but a more realistic acknowledgement that collective initiatives have to work in the real world.
So signatory status may now tell a slightly different story than it once did. Being a signatory still signals a willingness to engage publicly with climate-related investment issues, but it no longer implies quite the same level of collective alignment behind an interpretation of net zero investing. For treasury professionals using ESG initiatives as one of several indicators when assessing managers, it increases the importance of looking beyond membership of a collective framework and examining what individual firms are actually doing on net zero in practice.
If you’d like to learn more about Arlingclose’s ESG and responsible investment services please contact us on info@arlingclose.com
08/06/2026
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