UN-Sponsored Climate Club, Dormant After Mass Defections, Is Resurrected

A U.N.-backed climate club for asset managers, which shut down a year ago as members quit en masse, has reformed and relaunched, with 250 firms signing on.

Facing antitrust scrutiny from U.S. state and federal officials, the U.N.-sponsored Net Zero Asset Managers initiative (NZAM) announced in January 2025 that it would suspend its activities after BlackRock and 32 other U.S. companies, including Capital Group, JPMorgan Asset Management, and Franklin Templeton, abruptly quit the group. Vanguard had exited NZAM in 2022.

Until it ceased operations in 2025, NZAM membership included commitments to cut global greenhouse gas emissions across members’ investment portfolios and to align their investments with U.N. net-zero goals.

Increasingly, members of NZAM and other climate alliances faced pressure from some state attorneys general, including threats of antitrust actions for alleged collusion against U.S. coal, gas, and oil companies and allegations that they had violated their fiduciary obligations by pursuing political goals with their investors’ money.

Many state treasurers had also threatened asset managers with boycotts regarding state funds.

On Feb. 25, NZAM reemerged with looser membership criteria that it hopes will attract the members who had departed, recognizing that members can only do what the laws and regulations in their home jurisdictions allow. To date, however, only 12 U.S. fund managers have rejoined—down from 44 who were members at the organization’s peak in 2024.

Environmental groups have hailed NZAM’s revival.

In a statement, the Sierra Club called it “an important signal that many firms are not abandoning basic climate commitments” but cautioned that “the real test is whether managers are shifting capital toward climate solutions, ending support for new fossil fuel expansion, and using their leverage to secure credible transition plans from portfolio companies.”

Critics said their concerns have not been assuaged by NZAM’s more permissive criteria.

“This relaunch is an attempt to repackage a Euro-style coordinated investing scheme in language they believe will survive U.S. antitrust and fiduciary scrutiny,” Derek Kreifels, CEO of Prospr Aligned, which advises states on corporate proxy voting, told The Epoch Times. “Rebranding does not change the underlying collectivism.”

Europe, US on Different Roads

Some U.S. firms, such as State Street Investment Management, Fidelity, T. Rowe Price, and Wellington Management, are not members of the reformed NZAM, but their European affiliates have joined. Analysts say this likely reflects Europe’s continuing commitment to U.N.-linked climate goals.

“The initiative today is largely European in composition, reflecting a policy environment that remains deeply committed to [environmental, social, and governance] frameworks, while many U.S. investors have shifted back toward a fiduciary-first mindset,” Tim Schwarzenberger, portfolio manager with Inspire Investing, told The Epoch Times. “Investors should approach the relaunch with caution rather than enthusiasm.”

Referring to the legal issues faced by U.S. companies and others around the globe, NZAM stated upon its relaunch that “the scope for asset managers to support investing aligned with the global goal of net zero greenhouse gas emissions … depends on the mandates agreed with clients … and asset managers are subject always to fiduciary duties as defined in their jurisdictions.”

In addition to the pressure from certain states on climate alliances, a watershed moment came with the reelection of U.S. President Donald Trump, whose administration holds a negative view of government support for the net-zero movement and takes a stronger stance on enforcing U.S. antitrust laws than the Biden administration.

The closure of NZAM in 2025 followed the abrupt exodus of U.S. banks—including Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, Wells Fargo, JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, and Morgan Stanley—from the U.N.-sponsored Net-Zero Banking Alliance, which occurred within weeks of Trump’s reelection in 2024. These departures followed half of the members of the U.N.-sponsored Net-Zero Insurance Alliance quitting the organization in 2023.

Beyond legal and regulatory risks, critics have said that membership in these U.N.-led alliances has achieved little in terms of their environmental goals.

Calling the climate groups “virtue signaling rather than value creation,” Schwarzenberger said that “energy transitions are driven by markets, not mandates.”

“Technological change happens because better solutions emerge, not because alliances declare them,” he said. “If alternative energy technologies are truly more efficient and cost-effective, markets will adopt them without artificial pressure.”

The Epoch Times reached out to NZAM for comment but did not receive a response by publication time.