Blunomy brief: October 2025
2025: The Year Climate Finance Stops Pretending
Archetypes of climate investment strategies in Europe. Study conducted by Blunomy on a panel of 20 European asset managers.
Climate finance is entering a decisive phase. The suspension of flagship initiatives such as NZAM has exposed the fragility of voluntary commitments. At the same time, regulators and markets are demanding stronger evidence that capital is driving measurable change. “Pure green” funds have often underperformed, while avoiding high-emitting sectors has delivered little systemic impact. The result is growing scrutiny — and diminishing patience — for climate finance that relies on signalling rather than substance.
Blunomy’s position paper, 2025: The Year Climate Finance Stops Pretending, argues that this shift marks both a challenge and an opportunity for asset managers and financial institutions. Credibility and performance will increasingly depend on:
- Robust methodologies that make transition and physical risks quantifiable.
- Financing real decarbonisation in hard-to-abate sectors rather than exiting them.
- Embedding climate into mainstream investment decisions, through stronger analytical and organisational capabilities.
For diversified asset managers, the question is no longer whether to act, but how to align mandates with systemic risks and opportunities in ways that deliver both resilience and long-term value creation.
IMO Net Zero: A turning point for shipping – and a near-term opportunity for bioLNG
The planned evolution of the IMO's greenhouse gas intensity targets, and the ability to generate or need to buy credits to meet them. (Source: Blunomy analysis)
Shipping is responsible for almost 3% of global greenhouse gas emissions, and without intervention these emissions will continue to grow. In April 2025, the International Maritime Organization (IMO) adopted a draft Net Zero Framework introducing a carbon pricing mechanism for all ocean-going vessels over 5,000 GT. Formal approval is scheduled for an extraordinary IMO session in October 2025, a decision that will shape the economics of shipping for decades.
The framework creates a two-tier carbon trading system, with tightening well-to-wake intensity thresholds and financial penalties for non-compliance. For shipowners, this raises immediate strategic questions: whether to pay penalties, adjust fuel blends, or over-comply in order to generate tradeable credits.
In this context, the opportunity for bioLNG is clear. With a large and growing LNG fleet already in operation, bioLNG offers a drop-in pathway to significant emissions reductions, leveraging existing infrastructure while bridging to longer-term solutions. As regulatory clarity emerges, the ability of bioLNG to deliver real decarbonisation at scale will be critical in determining compliance strategies and shaping investment flows across the value chain.
Green pulse
Recent deals and market developments that have caught our eye.
✈️ Sustainable aviation | Regulatory uncertainty for SAF: There has been some discussion in the aviation sector on whether the 2030 targets for RefuelEU Aviation will be maintained (6% SAF, incl. 1.2% e-SAF).
- Regulatory uncertainty is a major challenge for developers looking to sign offtake agree-ments, with potential buyers stalling or asking for force majeure clauses.
- Uncertainty could stall capital flows at a critical moment for project pipelines.
🔋 Hydrogen | Momentum is slow, despite growth: The IEA highlights that while over 200 low-carbon hydrogen projects have reached FID since 2020, cancellations mean the 2030 project pipeline has shrunk for the first time (37 Mtpa in 2025 vs. 49 Mtpa in 2024).
- In the EU, most capacity awarded funding from the latest EU Hydrogen Bank round in July has failed to sign their grant agreements, with 1.9 GW of 2.3 GW awarded capacity (7/15 projects) having withdrawn after failing to sign a “completion guarantee”.
💰 Transactions | Active deal flow in biomethane: M&A remains robust, with a focus on brownfield retrofits and market consolidation. Recent highlights in the sector include:
- Infranity provided €245m financing to Italy’s FemoGas to boost biomethane capacity.
- CycleØ acquired a Spanish waste site in a €200m biomethane push.
- Iberis Capital bought Portuguese NGV firm Dourogas for €30m, aiming to scale biomethane supply.
Blunomy news
- The Blunomy team enjoyed the discussions at Building Bridges 2025, and contributed to them alongside a couple of our partners!
- Last week, Blunomy's intrepid travellers were in Amsterdam for CeFPro’s Climate Risk & Climate Stress Testing Europe 2025. We were speaking on the first day of the conference.
- Closer to home (Blunomy HQ in Paris), our co-founder Vincent Kientz appeared on the programme at Produrable in Paris on 9 October.
- On 15 and 16 October, some of the team will be at Innovatrix's 2nd ESG Innovation & Finance Summit in Vienna, and again looking forward to a speaking role!
- And last but by no means least, Blunomy's Hugo Khelifa will be speaking at All-Energy Australia in Melbourne on 30 October, detailing our work looking at the maturity of markets around the world for Virtual Power Plants.