Guardian owner misses climate goal despite fossil fuel divestment

The £1.3 billion endowment behind The Guardian newspaper is missing the Paris goal to limit global warming, despite being one of the first big funds to commit to dropping fossil fuel investments almost a decade ago.
An analysis of the environmental impact of the Scott Trust Endowment’s investments in the fund’s latest performance report estimated that it was aligned with a 2.2C “implied temperature rise” at the end of March.
While this was down from 2.4C a year earlier, it is well above the target of stopping global temperatures from rising by more than 1.5C agreed by world leaders in the Paris accord and cited in the endowment’s report.
The Paris goal was set in 2015, the same year that the Scott Trust started to pull out of fossil fuel investments to bring its portfolio into line with the Guardian’s high-profile “Keep It in the Ground” campaign. The initiative by the newspaper, which called on investors to offload polluting assets, led to an increase in its coverage of the climate crisis.
The Scott Trust, which can trace its roots to 1936, aims to safeguard the future of The Guardian “in perpetuity”, backed by the endowment. The Guardian Media Group, which is owned by the Scott Trust, is in talks to sell The Observer, its Sunday title, to Tortoise Media, a start-up founded by James Harding, a former BBC News executive and editor of The Times.
The endowment’s 2023-24 report is the first time that it has published estimates for the temperature impact of its portfolio, which spans investments in bonds and equities to hedge funds and private market assets.
It said that “a core area of work has been to understand the environmental impact of the endowment and develop an investment strategy that contributes to the Paris Agreement’s goal of limiting global warming to 1.5C”.
Since 2015 the endowment had been a member of the United Nations’ principles for responsible investment. However, unlike previous reports, there was no mention of the UN PRI in the latest performance update. A spokeswoman for The Guardian confirmed that the fund had decided to leave the group, having “embedded” its principles.
“The endowment has been a responsible investor since its inception,” the spokeswoman said, adding that its fossil fuel divestment “has largely been completed. We are committed to playing our part through our investments, engagement and industry collaboration to contribute to tackling environmental and social problems. We continue to adapt our approach as industry standards and methodologies develop, while being transparent about our progress.”