The Amundi Just Transition for Climate fund secured the EMEA fixed income fund of the year award after impressing judges with its structured approach to tackling the social impacts of the transition to the low-carbon transition.

A Sustainable Investment Awards judge was particularly impressed by the "interesting and innovative" Just Transition score used by the fund, which has assets of €770 million ($823.7 million) as at 28 June..

The fund applies a proprietary Just Transition score which assesses company performance in areas including employment security, training and education, tax behaviour, stakeholder dialogues, and social impact of products.

"Many investors are speaking about the importance of a Just Transition, but few have such a structured way of addressing it in company analysis," the Sustainable Investment Awards judge said.

More concretely, Amundi told Environmental Finance the fund – managed by fixed income SRI processes head Alban de Faÿ – requires investee companies to ensure that its employees in restructuring industries can find jobs in sustainable businesses, consumer goods are accessible to all at affordable prices, and the transition costs and benefits are "equitably shared" with local communities.

The judge was also impressed by the “climate credibility” of the fund alongside its Just Transition focus. The fund is committed to maintaining a carbon intensity at least 30% lower than its benchmark as well as reducing its carbon intensity by 7% on an annual basis. Therefore, the fund has gone even further by adopting a net-zero approach, meaning the fund is aligned with a decarbonisation path towards a temperature trajectory below 2°C and excludes issuers whose business models are not compatible with the transition to a low-carbon economy. To this end, Amundi is also strongly engaging with investees on their emission reduction targets. In 2024, for example, the company said it has already engaged with 70% of the holdings in the fund around the low-carbon transition.