The Climate Report - Winter 2011
Perhaps the most well-known source of data used by credit rating
agencies, investors, and others to evaluate companies'
climate-related performance is the set of reports compiled annually
by the Carbon Disclosure Project ("CDP") from responses
to CDP's climate change questionnaire. According to CDP, 534
financial institutions with assets of more than $64 trillion were
signatories to the CDP 2010 information request, which was sent to
more than 4,700 of the world's largest companies.
CDP's September 2010
report on the S&P 500 summarized responses from 70
percent of the S&P 500 companies (up from 66 percent in 2009),
detailing climate change risks and benefits, including how they
plan to capitalize on commercial opportunities related to climate
change. In addition, 59 percent of the S&P 500 companies (up
from 52 percent in 2009) disclosed their carbon emissions, at least
in part.
The 2010 CDP report notes that the demand for CDP's carbon
performance data continues to grow and is now accessed through
Bloomberg and Google Finance. The report includes a new performance
score evaluating leadership in managing carbon risk and exposures,
and asserts that large U.S. companies lag behind the Global 500
peer group, in which three times as many companies score high
enough to be recognized as carbon performance leaders.
CDP has also launched two index products designed to identify
companies well-positioned for a transition to a low carbon
economy—the FTSE CDP Carbon Strategy Index series and the
Markit Carbon Disclosure Leadership Index.
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