Climate change has climbed back up the priority list for institutional and wholesale investors for the first time in three years, halting a period of cooling that followed a wave of political backlash. According to a comprehensive new global survey released by international asset manager Robeco, a striking majority of investors now view physical climate risks as an economic reality that will directly influence asset prices and portfolio management over the coming decade.
The report reveals that more than eight out of ten investors globally expect physical climate impacts to sway asset valuations over the next ten years. Furthermore, the vast majority of financial institutions with existing net-zero commitments are standing firmly by their targets, despite a noticeable softening in government-level support for green mandates. Looking ahead, most surveyed market participants plan to expand their capital allocations toward climate-focused solutions and clean energy transitions over the next three years, signaling a shift toward pragmatic, economically driven sustainability strategies.
To compile the report, Robeco surveyed 300 institutional and wholesale investors spread across Europe, North America, Asia-Pacific, and South Africa. The participants represented a massive cross-section of the global financial ecosystem, with individual assets under management ranging from under $1 billion to more than $1 trillion, and culminating in an aggregate pool of over $35 trillion in overall AUM.
The findings illustrate a growing, acute awareness of the tangible financial fallout associated with global warming. Among those surveyed, 66% of investors expect physical climate risks to exert a moderate to significant impact on asset prices over a five-year horizon. That figure jumps sharply to 82% when looking out over a ten-year timeline, with nearly half—46%—anticipating a distinctly "significant" impact on asset valuations.
This risk-conscious outlook is also fundamentally reshaping how institutional players construct portfolios. Sixty-three percent of respondents expect physical climate risks to directly influence strategic asset allocation over the next five years. Additionally, 57% foresee these risks altering how they select asset managers, and 59% expect climate factors to play a pivotal role in individual stock-picking decisions.
Alongside this heightened awareness of portfolio vulnerability, overall investor prioritization of climate change has stabilized. The downward trend that began after the importance of climate change to investment policies peaked at 75% in 2022 has finally bottomed out. The survey found that 47% of investors now report that climate change is significant or central to their investment policies, ticking up slightly from 46% last year.
This nascent recovery was primarily driven by a resurgence in North America, the region that previously spearheaded the decline in climate prioritization. Despite this rebound, North American investors still trail the rest of the world, with only 27% placing climate at the core of their policies. However, optimism remains for future integration; 62% of global respondents expect climate change to be a significant or central pillar of their investment policies within the next two years.
Lucian Peppelenbos, Climate and Biodiversity Strategist at Robeco, pointed to the increasingly visible and disruptive physical consequences of a warming planet as a catalyst for this shift in sentiment.
"The increasingly alarming physical effects of global warming, such as the wildfires that forced over a quarter of a million people to evacuate in Europe, are certainly focusing minds," Peppelenbos noted. "In one of the most striking results of the 2026 survey, a majority of investors say those effects will have a significant impact on asset prices and strategic asset allocation over the coming years. Climate has moved from a stated ambition to a pricing question, and a pricing question cannot be set aside when the mood turns."
Even as financial markets refocus on climate risks, the Robeco report underscores a pragmatic, clear-eyed view regarding the broader trajectory of global climate goals. Investors harbor few illusions about the smoothness of the transition; only 19% expect an orderly climate transition to unfold over the next decade. Furthermore, 44% view the Paris Agreement’s target of limiting global warming to 2 °C as practically unachievable.
Yet, this sobering outlook has not derailed institutional commitments to decarbonization. The survey revealed that investors are largely maintaining their long-term climate trajectories while preparing to deploy more capital into transition-oriented solutions. Among the participants, 22% reported having made a formal public commitment to achieve net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, consistent with 23% last year. Another 14% are currently in the process of making a public commitment—unchanged from 2025—while 31% are actively investigating making such a pledge, up from 26% in the previous survey.
For organizations that have already codified net-zero targets, external political headwinds have done little to derail their core missions. Sixty-four percent of these committed investors reported that the global slowdown in government support for net-zero goals has not altered their targets or their underlying investment approaches. While 31% noted that they remain committed to the end goal but are actively reconsidering their investment strategies to navigate changing conditions, a mere 4% are actually reconsidering their net-zero commitment itself.
Furthermore, a significant majority of investors—63%—expressed belief that the political and cultural backlash against net-zero initiatives will eventually recede. They anticipate that as the physical and financial risks of climate change become increasingly material, both governments and markets will be forced to adapt.
This pragmatic optimism is translating directly into financial deployment. Forty-two percent of investors plan to increase their allocations to investments or funds actively aimed at combating climate change over the next year. That figure expands dramatically to 60% when looking across a three-year horizon. Moreover, 72% of respondents confirmed that their organizations have either established a quantitative target for climate solution allocations or outlined a broad mandate to direct more capital toward climate-focused assets, up from 64% last year.
This anticipated surge in capital deployment coincides with a growing consensus that the energy transition represents a compelling commercial opportunity. Seventy-one percent of survey respondents agreed that the transition toward renewable energy sources will continue to march forward regardless of political pushback against net-zero frameworks. Nearly half of the participants even suggested that reduced climate commitments from certain competitors or entities might actually widen investment opportunities in renewable infrastructure for nimble market players.
Summarizing the evolving ethos of modern institutional finance, Peppelenbos emphasized that sustainability has become inextricably linked to hard economic fundamentals and geopolitical reality.
"Our 2026 study illustrates what we call the new reality of climate investing," Peppelenbos said. "While investors remain committed to their net-zero goals, there is a growing realism that the transition is driven by hard economics and hard geopolitics. The drive for energy security is benefiting investments in areas such as renewables, battery storage and grids. The new climate reality is also a realization that physical risks are here now, not in a distant future. We believe this will increasingly drive investor sentiment in the next few years."
