A Report by the Centre for Climate Crime and Climate Justice.
Written by Celine Giese, London School of Economics
and Political Science and Bill Spence and David Whyte,
Queen Mary University of London.
Executive Summary
Over the past three years, the world’s biggest polluters have been
ditching or downgrading their climate commitments, encouraged
by their largest shareholders. Most of the largest shareholders are asset
management firms.
This report looks at the role and influence of British asset management
firms as shareholders of the world’s 12 largest share-owned carbon
emitters (‘The Dirty Dozen’).
The report finds that:
- 107 British shareholders hold a total of £49bn in value in the Dirty Dozen.
- Share ownership is highly concentrated at the top of this list.
- The top 10 shareholders account for nearly three-quarters of British shareholding in the Dirty Dozen.
- The top three shareholders, Legal and General, HSBC and Barclays, own nearly 40% of all British shareholding.
- Legal and General, the investment arm of the British insurance company, is the dirtiest British investor. It has consistently been the highest British investor in high carbon companies since 2015.
- The others are Aberdeen Group, Janus Henderson Group, Aviva Investors Global Services, Royal London Asset Management, Hargreaves Lansdown Asset Management, Schroder Investment Management and Rathbones.
- The emissions attributed to British shareholders in 2025 was 169 megatonnes, equivalent to the carbon emissions of all homes in Britain.
- The emissions attributed to the top three shareholders in 2025 was 62.4 megatonnes, more than the carbon emissions of all cars in Britain.
The British government regularly notes that the country contributes ‘only’ 1% – 1.5% of global emissions. Our findings indicate that this claim is misleading: British investors fund 3.6% of the Dirty Dozen.
Given that it has 0.8%-0.83% of the world’s population, both Britain’s share of emissions and its investments in carbon-intensive companies are disproportionately high.
Emissions reductions attributed to British shareholders have averaged
1.6% a year since 2015 (201.8 megatonnes to 169 megatonnes); net zero
by 2050 requires more than 5% reductions a year over the next decade –
nearly three times as much.