Why would I want to measure my portfolio’s carbon footprint?

Measuring the carbon footprint of a portfolio means you can:

  • compare it to global benchmarks
  • identify priority areas and actions for reducing emissions
  • track progress in making those reductions

Investors who have already measured the carbon footprint of portfolios say that doing so can:

  • improve their own understanding of the portfolio risks and opportunities that climate change presents
  • give them answers to stakeholder questions on climate change
  • allow them to publicly demonstrate commitment to tackling climate change

There’s also ever-growing pressure – from governments, civil society and from the investment community – for companies and the investors that hold stakes in them to measure and reduce their carbon footprint. Specific initiatives include:

Investor initiatives

Government initiatives

  • US-China Joint Announcement on Climate Change

    including new targets for carbon emissions reductions by the United States (26%-28% below 2005 levels by 2025) and a first-ever commitment by China to halt its emissions growth (by 2030, and with non-fossil fuel sources to be 20% of the mix)

  • IPCC’s Synthesis Report

    calling for fossil fuels to be phased out by 2100

  • United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP21)

    • in Paris in November/December 2015

  • Almost 500 climate laws have been passed in at least 66 countries, with increasing pace in emerging markets

    e.g. in the UK the 2008 Climate Change Act commits to legally binding carbon budgets and to reducing emissions by at least 80% from 1990 levels by 2050