Testimonial from Ginette Borduas, Partner and ESG & Sustainability Director at Meridiam

A pioneer in integrating climate considerations into its infrastructure investment strategies, Meridiam has been using the CIARA tool since 2020. More than just a reporting tool, CIARA now supports the management, deployment, and strategic direction of several funds. Ginette Borduas explains the reasons behind this long-term commitment with Carbone 4.

A use embedded in the investment strategy

“Meridiam was one of the first sponsors to support the development of CIARA. From the beginning, we saw this tool not only as a reporting mechanism, but above all as a strategic management lever for our portfolios,” explains Ginette Borduas.
 

Since then, the company has modeled the temperature alignment of more than 120 portfolio companies using CIARA, covering various sectors and geographical areas. This experience gives Meridiam a unique ability: to predict an asset’s carbon impact based on its type and location, starting from the due diligence phase.

A climate filter to measure decarbonization performance

Meridiam has not imposed a strict temperature requirement for each asset at entry, in order to support the transition of some high-emitting assets (a “grey-to-green” strategy). “CIARA serves as a strategic filter—a lens through which we guide our allocation decisions and align our funds with a Paris Agreement–compatible trajectory, especially when creating new funds or for retail funds. But we don’t want to commit to rigid thresholds while funds are still being deployed.”
In addition, Meridiam has developed an ESG and sustainability risk assessment framework systematically used by investment teams during the due diligence phase to evaluate both transition and physical risks of target assets.

An ongoing, trust-based collaboration

Meridiam has gone beyond merely using CIARA. The organization also financed the geographic expansion of the methodology, supporting the development of new scenarios for Africa and North America.

“Our collaboration with Carbone 4 has been characterized by genuine co-construction. We have used the results to track the climate performance of already deployed funds and to refine the strategies of funds currently being deployed.”

A valuable tool for shareholder engagement

Among the assets analyzed with Meridiam, the example of the heating and cooling networks at the University of Iowa campus in the United States illustrates the full value of the CIARA methodology. Thanks to this approach, several scenarios for the asset’s evolution through 2040 were modeled, accounting for more or less ambitious coal phase-out trajectories between 2025 and 2030. The analysis quantified the impact of each scenario on climate alignment—in degrees Celsius—and compared these trajectories to Paris Agreement thresholds. The study showed that accelerating the coal phase-out to 2025 would improve the asset’s alignment by -0.6°C. These findings enabled Meridiam to confirm its decision to exit coal by 2025, as initially planned during the project’s development. This is a concrete example of CIARA’s strategic contribution to steering portfolios toward carbon neutrality.