ESG Insight: Barclays
Doubling down
Constructing narratives was not easy in a complex year for sustainable finance. For finding a path between rhetoric and reality, providing clarity in a turbulent market and highlighting bright spots in the global sustainability story, Barclays wins IFR’s ESG Insight Award.
As new discussions developed around transition finance, energy security and defence and the impact of physical risk from extreme weather conditions, investors relied on the quality and credibility of Barclays’ insight.
The cross-asset global sustainable investing research team and its thematic counterpart are the engine of Barclays’ thought leadership, along with its Sustainability Insights platform, which provides analysis on transition topics from across the broader group.
This research produces the information that underpins all of Barclays' client engagement, advisory and sustainable financing that contributes towards the bank’s US$1trn target for sustainable and transition finance by 2030.
Despite public criticism over its fossil fuel exposure and its exit from the UN-sponsored Net-Zero Banking Alliance in August, Barclays’ thought leadership helped move the sustainability agenda forward in 2025 as investors looked beyond the headlines for measurable impact.
“With some of the political headwinds and rhetoric in play, investors really doubled down and wanted to make clear what they're investing in, how they're investing and the benefits of that approach,” said Maggie O’Neal Van Loon, global head of sustainable investing research.
“This has been gaining emphasis in 2025 and will remain a focus in 2026.”
While Barclays research uses benchmark data from established providers such as MSCI, it is also working with smaller data providers, including UK-based climate analytics firm Risilience, which quantifies climate and nature risk, and SparkChange in Germany for carbon pricing impact.
“Another element of thought leadership is also the data and providers that we are using. We want to use data that we find is very rigorous to differentiate Barclays,” said Gwen Safa, head of sustainable corporate solutions.
The global sustainable investing research team identified five major themes at the beginning of 2025: transition investing; extreme weather, nature and adaptation; political climate change; carbon markets; and sustainable investing.
Transition dominated sustainable finance in 2025, and Barclays published its transition update in July. The research team worked with sector analysts on transition topics, including a report with Barclays' aviation analysis team on the sector’s progress.
“We have quite a broad base of work, but we are always trying to lean into that cross-asset approach because we found that you often get insights on one asset class from the other, and vice versa,” O’Neal Van Loon said.
Other topics that resonated with investors included physical risk, as adaptation and resilience climbed the agenda, and defence, amid heightened geopolitical tensions and fears over national energy security.
Barclays created new physical risk maps and tools, including a heat stress tool, to give forward-looking views and sector outlooks that help investors to incorporate that into investment decisions and portfolio construction.
“The forward-looking component is gaining a lot of traction in the US and is definitely picking up in Europe,” O’Neal Van Loon said.
A report called "Defence comes in from the cold" by Barclays’ strategy team that looked at investors’ exclusion policies, the European Union’s plans and the impact on companies also proved popular as it helped to frame the energy security debate around industrial policy.
“I think defence and the shifting approach that sustainable investors are taking towards it has probably been a topic for every single call that we've had this year,” O’Neal Van Loon said.
The global thematic investing research team looked at trends over a longer horizon to analyse the beneficiaries of structural shifts, looking at thematic fund flow data and conducting deep dives on themes including water, robotics and automation, among others.
The Sustainability Insights platform provided analysis and perspectives on transition with input from corporate and investment banking, group sustainability and Barclays Climate Ventures, which invests equity in climate tech startups that focus on decarbonisation.
Topics included energy efficiency for small and medium-sized UK businesses, UK agritech and a groundbreaking white paper in August that outlined the bank’s position on nature and transition.
Barclays combined the Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures’ methodology with internal quantitative analysis and scenario testing and applied it to mining and European power portfolios to show how nature loss and biodiversity risk can impact corporate earnings.