Achieving Sustainability

Investing across the energy spectrum

Matt Christensen | Diane Mak

10/11/2025

Contributing to the energy transition through private markets investments

Global temperatures have continued to break new records in recent years. Addressing climate change requires ambitious transformation efforts, including a shift in the global energy system from fossil-fuel dominance to a system based on clean energy.¹
Private markets investors are taking advantage of a spectrum of energy transition investment opportunities, across areas such as electrified transport, renewable energy, power grids and energy storage, as well as investments into more carbon-intensive assets to support the decarbonisation process.

In this paper we have outlined energy transition spectrum comprised of three categories of business activities for considering energy transition contribution:

Environmental solutions: Activities that provide environmental solutions (eg, renewables, storage and supporting services, electric mobility, green hydrogen and derivatives, and biogas using low- carbon feedstock).
Business transformation and transition: Activities contributing through business transformation and transition. Although currently more carbon-intensive, these may enable significant emissions reductions at a systems-level or have a positive contribution over time while decarbonising (eg, high efficiency cogeneration of heat/cooling and power from fossil gaseous fuels, low-carbon hydrogen and derivatives).
Business-as-usual: Activities that are “business-as-usual” (eg, combined cycle gas turbines, grey hydrogen, and data centres that are not aligned with EU Taxonomy or equivalent standards). These are not considered contributing to the energy transition.

We believe that setting out a clear and structured approach to investing in the energy transition is an essential part of our role as asset manager for guiding our clients’ investments within this theme. This summary of our approach is also intended to contribute to industry discussions.

¹Clean energy typically encompasses all energy sources that produce no climate-warming greenhouse gas emissions in their operations, and can include both renewables (eg, solar, wind) and non-renewables (eg, nuclear).

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