"CMIA helped to explain the potential for project-based mechanisms across a variety of constituencies and is a key voice driving the conversation on results-based finance and sector approaches for scaling-up emission reduction investments. We urgently need input from organisations like CMIA to operationalise Art 6 of the Paris Agreement."

Mr. Franz-Josef Schafhausen, former Director General Climate Change, European and International Affairs, Federal German Ministry of the Environment, Nature Conservation, Building and Nuclear Safety

CDP launches climate ‘temperature rating’ system for investors

13th July 2020 by CMIA

Global environmental non-profit group CDP said on Tuesday it had created a temperature ratings system that will allow investors to track carbon emissions from across the value chain of more than 4,000 companies.

The degree to which companies’ emissions are on track to support the Paris Agreement on climate change is a focus for investors as they look to pick the leaders in the transition to a low-carbon economy and engage with the laggards.

“Investors increasingly want to align their portfolios with international climate goals and the economy of the future,” said Laurent Babikian, Director Capital Markets at CDP Europe.

“By providing a clear, science-based and uniform standard for companies’ ambition, CDP temperature ratings now allow investors to do that by benchmarking, communicating and reducing the temperature of their portfolios and products.”

Under the Paris accord, countries agreed to keep the average global temperature increase to no more than 2 degrees Celsius and ideally to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial norms by 2050.

As regulators increasingly look to incentivise changes in corporate behaviour through new laws and taxes, investors could potentially see the value of their investments hit hard.

To better understand the risk in their portfolios, a number of asset managers have already been looking to get to grips with the data being produced by companies in an effort to track the implied temperature score of their portfolios.

CDP said in a statement its data was based on an assessment of each company’s emission-reduction targets, as reported to CDP every year, converted into a temperature rating.

Crucially, CDP said the data would provide insight to the full range of emissions from a company, including so-called “Scope 3” emissions from a company’s products, which for a large oil company would include gasoline used in cars and trucks.

French asset manager Amundi will be the first to use the new rating system as a way to bolster its research efforts, drive engagement with company boards and track the performance of its funds.

“These temperature measurements will … strengthen the evidence we have to select companies with whom we wish to carry out specific climate commitment actions, in order to encourage them to develop and implement climate commitments,” said Jean-Jacques Barberis, Head of Institutional and Corporate Clients Coverage at Amundi.

Source: https://bit.ly/CDP_Rate