Storebrand Global Plus outperformed the MSCI World Index by around 30bps in the fourth quarter, driven largely by the ~12% of its portfolio invested in climate solutions companies (+25bps) and a positive relative contribution from excluding fossil fuel stocks (+10bps). These outweighed the main performance drag from following Storebrand’s broad exclusion policy that avoids stocks breaching international norms and conventions (-6bps).
Its relative strength over the final quarter helped the fund to close the gap on the benchmark for the full-year and it ended 2025 around 100bps behind the index. Over the 12 months, the Storebrand-wide exclusion policy was the largest drag on performance (-100bps), while the ~88% of the portfolio which provides exposure to the broad equity market with a tilt towards various climate-positive data sets detracted a further 60bps. Most of this effect can be explained by the fund’s preference for overweighting companies which have an SBTi approved climate plan, which means they had likely invested for the energy transition and were punished by negative changes in climate policies during the year, particularly in the US. These headwinds were offset by positive contributions from excluding fossil fuels (+27bps) and investing in climate solutions (+24bps).
Climate policy climbdowns
It is unfortunate that these policy reversals, which will reduce our migration speed, occurred against a backdrop of unrelenting global warming. Copernicus data shows that 2023, 2024 and 2025 were all warmer than all previous years. In addition, for each month of the year, the heat record for that month occurred during the last three years (figure 1).
Last year also marked the tenth anniversary of the Paris Agreement and the latest Climate Action Tracker, published in November, provided a sobering progress update. It found that there has been little or no measurable improvement over the last four years to the estimated global temperature increase by the end of the century (figure 2). Few countries have updated their 2030 targets and those proposed by China and the EU would not materially change their emissions path, while the US has withdrawn from the Paris Agreement and continues to roll back its climate policies.
Although less harmful to climate ambitions that the US, recent European policy changes have diluted previous commitments by extending transition deadlines and introducing industry-friendly loopholes that will reduce near-term mitigation efforts and the likelihood of long-term success. For example, the EU recently removed the 2035 deadline for ceasing production of combustion engine cars.
Renewables resurgence
More positive last year was the rapid acceleration in renewables which generated more electricity globally than coal for the first time, helped by solar and wind becoming the cheapest sources of power. This was reflected in strong equity performance with the S&P Global Clean Energy Transition Index delivering a positive 44% return in 2025 following three consecutive years of losses[1].
This recovery was also apparent in the whitelist of climate solutions companies used for Storebrand Global Plus and its sister fund, Storebrand Emerging Markets Plus. On an equal-weighted basis, this list gained around 33% last year, measured in USD, which was around 10% higher than the performance of the MSCI ACWI equal-weighted index. Among the best performing sub-themes were batteries, recycling and grid, helped by the surge in demand for AI power and metal prices, while both solar (+33%) and wind (+30%) also performed strongly.
You can watch the Q4 Global Plus webinar presented by Lead Portfolio Manager, Henrik Wold Nilsen here: Q4 2025 Storebrand Global Plus
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[1] Source: S&P Global