Al Gore joins ex-Goldman Sachs AM head to debut climate change asset manager

Former US vice-president, Al Gore, has teamed up with the former head of Goldman Sachs Asset Management (GSAM), David Blood, to launch a new asset manager, which will prioritise tackling climate change.

The new firm, Just Climate, says its mission is to achieve the limiting of global temperature rise to 1.5°C by "directing and scaling capital towards the most impactful climate solutions".

Blood told the Financial Times the new investment group would focus on private markets and back companies and projects for periods of up to 15 years.

In a press release he said the company had been founded to "do the hard yards of addressing the most difficult to decarbonise segments of the global economy that investors have ignored till now".

Blood set up the parent company for Just Climate, Generation Investment Management, with Gore in 2004.

Generation will back the new company alongside strategic partners including the Microsoft Climate Innovation fund, Ireland Strategic Investment fund, Ikea's IMAS foundation, Harvard Management company, Imprint Group of GSAM and Hall Capital Partners.

Blood will chair the new investment company and Shaun Kingsbury, former chief executive of UK Green Investment Bank has taken on the role of chief investment officer.

Gore, chairman of Generation, said: "As a sector, we urgently need to seriously rethink how capital is allocated in order to deliver real progress toward the net zero commitments we have made.

"Just Climate aims to prioritise impact, to challenge conventional thinking and to inspire the sort of innovations that are now required for us to overcome the climate challenges ahead of us."

Kingsbury added, "We hope our strategies will be differentiated by the magnitude, timeliness, and quality of impact they generate and by the returns we aim to produce. Since its launch in 2004, Generation has played a significant role in the development of the sustainable investment industry which I have admired from afar.

"I am therefore delighted to be playing a part in this latest initiative which we hope will play a similarly pioneering role in the establishment of climate transition investing as an asset class in its own right."