The governors of the Dutch and French central banks have called on the European Central Bank to start decarbonising its corporate bond holdings. Banque de France governor François Villeroy de Galhau says the ECB should vary the volume of bonds it buys and the value of collateral that it accepts according to the extent of corporate issuers' alignment with global warming reduction targets. De Nederlandsche Bank governor Klaas Knot says monetary policy instruments could be amended to incorporate a climate change mandate.

Following resistance from member states, the finalisation of the European Commission's sustainable finance taxonomy proposal has been delayed until late April. Ongoing debate about the plan is focused on whether certain economic activities should be classified as green, with some countries pushing for the inclusion of natural gas and biofuels as sustainable energy sources. Once it is finalised, the taxonomy will determine how the EU and private investors will allocate funds to projects and businesses promoting a low-carbon transition.

The UK's Investor Forum has called for mandatory votes at annual shareholders' meetings on corporate efforts to curb climate change. The group of investors, which between them oversee more than £20trn in assets and include Schroders, UBS and BlackRock, says annual non-binding shareholder votes would help identify which companies are doing well and which are not.

More than 100 institutional investors, including the UK's Church of England Pensions Board and the Council on Ethics of the Swedish National Pension Funds, have called on mining companies to introduce reforms by 2030 to avoid disasters where tailings dams fail, such as the dam collapse at Brumandinho in Brazil, which killed 270 people. The Mining & Tailings Safety Initiative group holds $20trn in assets under management and has committed to further engagement with mining groups.

Credit Suisse, ING and BNP Paribas have stopped financing trade in Ecuador's crude oil, following a report by Canadian environmental group Stand.earth and Amazon Watch claiming that their financing of oil exports to US refineries contributes to the destruction of rainforest, land rights violations and oil spills. Natixis, UBS and Rabobank were also named in the report as financing Ecuador's oil trade.

Three of the largest Dutch and Japanese pension funds have invested a combined $571m in Brazilian meatpacking companies, part of an industry contributing to significant deforestation in the Amazon region. The total amount invested by Algemeen Burgerlijk Pensioenfonds, Pensioenfonds Zorg en Welzijn and Japan's Government Pension Investment Fund is more than Brazil's government allocated to the Environment Ministry in its 2021 budget. The fund managers have defended their investment, arguing that their financial stake enables them to push for change in the meatpackers' business practices.

Aviva Investors has launched a climate engagement escalation programme under which it will engage with 30 companies that it has identified as systemically important carbon emitters. The asset manager is calling on companies to target net zero scope 3 emissions by 2050 and to publish roadmaps indicating how they will achieve their targets. Aviva Investors says it may divest from oil, gas, metals and mining companies that do not engage or abide by the targets they agree.

The €11bn IMAS foundation, which invests money from the charitable arm of Swedish furniture retailer IKEA, has committed $250m to seed a sustainable equity fund run by investment boutique Osmosis. The resource efficiency strategy will not invest in fossil fuels and will focus on companies that reduce carbon emissions and water consumption.

Nordea Asset Management is soft-closing its Global Climate and Environment Fund, which has more than doubled in size over the past year and grown by 500% in two years, reaching €6bn at the end of January. The fund was launched more than 12 years ago, and is run by Nordea’s fundamental equities team.

Global sustainable fund assets under management reached a record $1.652trn at the end of December, according to Morningstar. Assets were up 29% in the fourth quarter from the previous three months, while inflows were 88% higher in the quarter at $152.3bn, of which Europe provided €233bn, or 79.3%. The European market accounted for 81.3% of the total global assets at the end of 2020 and 77% of the 4,123 sustainable funds worldwide. BlackRock was the top sustainable fund provider in Europe, distantly followed by France's Amundi, in a year that saw a record 505 new fund launches across the continent, while a further 253 existing funds were reorientated to sustainability strategies.

Luxembourg has unveiled its sustainable finance strategy, based on the sustainable finance roadmap document published in 2018. Developed with the United Nations Environmental Programme, it offers recommendations on how the grand duchy can contribute toward meeting the Paris Agreement objectives. Luxembourg for Finance and the High Council for Sustainable Development have established the Luxembourg Sustainable Finance Initiative, a not-for-profit body that helped design the strategy and is responsible for implementing it.