How Do Asset Owners Turn Sustainability Strategy into Action?

Asset owners sit at the centre of the global financial system, overseeing an estimated tens of trillions in long-term capital. From pension funds and insurers to endowments and foundations, their investment decisions shape markets, corporate behaviour, and the pace of the sustainability transition. Yet as regulatory pressure evolves, net zero alliances slow, and market volatility reshapes risk appetite, a key question is becoming harder to ignore: how do asset owners actually turn sustainability strategy into real-world investment action?

In the latest episode of Sustainability Wired, Lorenzo Saa is joined by Anastasia Guha, Global Head of Sustainable and Impact Investment at Redington, to unpack what sustainable investing looks like from the asset owner’s seat. Drawing on nearly two decades of experience advising pension funds and institutional investors, Anastasia explains why sustainability today is less about high-level commitments and more about governance, mandates, and implementation.

From climate risk regulation and trustee decision-making to the practical constraints of asset allocation, the conversation reveals why time and governance structures often matter as much as capital itself. It also challenges some common assumptions, including the role of net zero initiatives, the limits of thematic investing, and why sustainable investment must ultimately deliver financial returns to endure.

Most importantly, the episode explores how asset owners can move beyond policies and pledges to define clear objectives, select the right investment managers, and hold them accountable for delivering on sustainability outcomes.

Listen in to learn how asset owners are navigating today’s regulatory shifts, balancing risk and return, and turning sustainability strategy into concrete investment action.

Key Moments

00:00	Why Sustainable Investing Looks Different for Asset Owners
02:45	Anastasia’s Journey into Sustainable Investing and Consulting
06:40	Why Asset Owners Adopt Sustainability Strategies
10:30	Regulation, Risk, and Regional Differences
14:20	From Beliefs to Strategy: Setting Sustainability Objectives
19:10	Governance, Trustees, and the Reality of Implementation
24:40	Stewardship in Practice: Asset Owners and Managers
29:50	Sustainability vs Impact: A Critical Distinction
36:10	Asset Classes, Time Horizons, and Governance Constraints
43:30	What Needs to Change for Sustainable Investing to Scale

Notable Quotes and Insights

Throughout the conversation, Anastasia Guha offers a practical view of what sustainable investing looks like from the asset owner perspective, moving beyond high-level commitments to the realities of governance, mandates, and portfolio implementation. Her insights highlight where sustainability strategies succeed, where they stall, and why financial discipline remains central to long-term impact. The following quotes capture the key moments that illustrate how asset owners are translating sustainability ambitions into concrete investment action.

1. Sustainability action starts with clear objectives, not products

Before selecting funds or themes, asset owners need a shared understanding of where their portfolios stand today and what role sustainability should play in their overall strategy. By grounding discussions in real data and aligning trustees around specific goals, sustainability shifts from a policy conversation into something that can be implemented and measured.

“Let’s take an example of a…large corporate DB pension scheme. What would happen there is that we would have started with baseline work. So, we would have taken all of their assets and put them through data checks to see what their carbon metrics looked like, from carbon footprint to intensity to absolute emissions. We then take the trustee group and do a belief session with them, but you give them their data, because it’s very difficult to do a belief session having absolutely no clue what your assets are currently doing.

Once they’ve decided that, we then start to think about, those are our objectives. Now how do we implement that? We know which asset classes we’re in. How do we maximize our objectives in each asset class? And then you choose the managers or move managers and strengthen stewardship, because now you know what you’re asking.”

2. Broad mandates matter more than chasing investment themes

While sustainability conversations often gravitate toward the latest themes or trends, effective asset owner strategies focus on strong manager selection and long-term narratives that cut across market cycles. Rather than second-guessing investment decisions at a granular level, consultants aim to give managers clear objectives and the flexibility to deliver risk-adjusted returns within wider sustainability priorities.

“Consultants like to devolve power to fund managers. The whole point with all of the hundreds of hours of due diligence that consultants do to pick what they think are the absolute top-class managers in every asset class is to give them the runway to do what they need to do to provide risk-adjusted returns. The idea that we would second guess them at a very granular level is probably not for us.

Ten years ago we would say thematic investment is not particularly a good idea because by the time you love a theme, it’s already overpriced or overbought. Today things are a little bit different because there are some meta narratives and climate is clearly one of them that none of us can duck out of. The point is that you want to keep those themes as wide as possible.”

3. Sustainable investing only scales when it delivers financial returns

While asset owners play an important role in driving sustainability forward, no single stakeholder can carry the transition alone. Lasting progress depends on policy, competitive investment markets, and approaches that treat sustainability as a financially material investment factor, not just a values-based objective.

“After having worked in this market for nearly 17 years, I think we fixate too much on this solution versus that solution. We need all the solutions. We need policy, we need asset owners to push more, we need investment managers to be more competitive with each other, and we need people to be more financially minded, thinking about materiality, because sustainability has to pay.Impact has to pay too, and I’m making the distinction between the two as I speak constantly. 

At the moment, the question is, does sustainability pay? Does it make us feel good or does it actually pay us pounds and pence, and over what time period does it pay? I think what happened when the movement became mainstream was a conflation of morals and financial returns. Now, after seeing many funds struggle or disappear, there’s been a breakdown of what works and a rethinking of what might work, and that’s not just a sustainable investing issue, it’s an investing issue more generally.”

4. Focus on your fund, not the initiative headlines

While much of the public debate centres on net zero alliances and industry initiatives, asset owner conversations are far more grounded. The real question is not what others are committing to, but how individual funds are managing risk, targets, and the realities of the transition.

“In the entire time that I’ve been working with asset owners, we have never once really discussed the initiatives. The question is not what’s happening to the initiatives, but what’s happening to your fund. What’s happening to your net zero targets, not what others are doing to theirs.

Net zero is an inevitability. It’s absolutely existential. We must get there. Net zero by 2050 is a separate matter altogether. What difference does it make whether one particular asset owner says, I can get to net zero by 2050? For the vast majority of my clients, I can get to net zero by 2030, let alone 2050. Because I just sell some things, and I’m there.

The role is not net zero by 2050. The question is, what is the role of asset owners to take on the risks and the opportunities of an inevitable but slower than we expected transition to a different type of economy.”