Finnish pension giant Ilmarinen Mutual Pension Insurance has invested more than €500m in Amundi’s new MSCI Europe Climate Action Ucits ETF.

The fund tracks an index designed to identify European companies assessed as the top 50% sector leaders in terms of their positioning and actions relative to the climate transition.

Notably, the ETF gives investors an alternative to ESG and Climate ETFs linked to the Paris-aligned benchmark (PAB) and EU Climate Transition benchmark.

The index methodology tracks metrics including carbon intensity, science-based targets, climate risk management, and revenues to assess, rank and select the leading companies. The index also screens out companies involved in controversial weapons, tobacco, thermal coal mining, oil sands and nuclear weapons.

Ilmarinen also recently invested €2.74bn in new climate-focused iShares ETFs in the US and Japan launched by BlackRock.

The newly launched ETF adds to Amundi’s existing range of more than 30 climate ETFs, all aligned to the PAB, a spokesperson said.

Juha Venäläinen, Ilmarinen senior portfolio manager, said: ‘The Amundi MSCI Europe Climate Action Ucits ETF investment will achieve a Europe exposure in Ilmarinen’s passive equity portfolio to companies we believe have a chance of performing better than their competitors when the business environment changes due to climate warming. We believe that for investors, these companies offer a more profitable investment in the long run than their competitors.’

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