Four Twenty Seven's monthly newsletter highlights recent developments on climate risk and resilience. This month we explore climate risk in the S&P 500, discuss the impacts of climate change on credit risk and share the latest reports on climate risk disclosure.
In Focus: Climate Risk in the S&P 500
Barron's: An Exclusive Look at the Companies Most Exposed
to Climate Change Risk - And What They're Doing About It
Bloomberg also reports on corporate climate reporting, highlighting the self-reported exposure of many U.S. companies in CDP, as well as reported opportunities from a changing climate, such as Home Depot's estimation that increasing disasters and higher temperatures will mean more sales, particularly of fans and cooling appliances.
PG&E Bankruptcy Sparks Investor Concerns
The bankruptcy of PG&E, California's largest utility, has become a symbol of the very material impacts climate change can have on corporations and financial markets. While credit ratings agencies like Moody's had downgraded PG&E's credit rating to junk status based on its tens of billions of dollars in wildfire liability in the weeks preceding the bankruptcy, the question for investors is how these risks can be detected and priced in earlier.
In a broad review of emerging practices for ESG, Credit Risk and Ratings, the UN Principles for Responsible Investment highlights the increased transparency by credit rating agencies and investors into their thinking on ESG integration, although these groups often have different goals for their ESG analysis.
Indeed, the world of credit ratings is slowly moving towards a better integration of ESG considerations at large, including some aspects of climate change risk, like transition risk. Trucost, of S&P Global recently released a report on integrating transition risk scenario analysis into credit rating instruments, while Fitch Ratings introduced ESG relevance scores that provide industry-specific explanations of ESG factors. Systematic integration of physical climate risk in corporate ratings, however, remains the next frontier for financial markets.
EU Releases Recommendations for
Climate Risk Disclosures
EU Technical Expert Group Report on Climate-related Disclosures
The report integrates climate risks into the existing NFRD framework, which includes business model; policies and due diligence processes; outcomes; principal risks and their management; and key performance indicators. It maps this framework to TCFD recommendations and goes further, referencing the EBRD-GCECA report on metrics for physical climate risks and opportunities reporting. While many of the metrics identified in the recommendations are for transition risk, the authors do integrate physical climate risk throughout the report and also require disclosure of a company's impact on climate change.
Quantifying Climate Risk:
Stories from the Field
Dutch Central Bank Assesses Water Risk in the Financial Sector
This report surveys the uptake of TCFD recommendations by large companies in Asia, focusing on the financial services, agriculture, energy, materials, buildings, mining and transport sectors. The research found that insurance, transport and energy sectors scored the highest for both quality and coverage of TCFD reporting, while asset owners and managers had lower average scores.
On Again: France Enters Third Year of Mandatory Disclosures
2019 marks the third reporting year under Art. 173 in France, which requires investors to disclose their exposure to both transition and physical risk. Noteworthy reports from previous years' reporting include analysis by French sovereign wealth fund Fonds de Réserve pour les Retraites (FRR) and insurance company Allianz France, which both integrate physical risk analysis by Four Twenty Seven. Read more about our reporting and analytics solutions for investors and banks.
Upcoming Events
Join the Four Twenty Seven team at these upcoming events:
March 20-22 – Climate Leadership Conference, Baltimore, MD: Emilie Mazzacurati will speak about the evolving landscape of climate risk disclosure.
April 10-12 – RI Asia Japan, Tokyo, Japan: Hear Chief Development Officer, Frank Freitas, present on climate analytics for investors and meet with Emilie Mazzacurati at Four Twenty Seven's booth.
April 13-16 – APA National Planning Conference, San Francisco, CA: Director of Advisory Services, Yoon Kim, and Director of Analytics, Nik Steinberg, will speak on a panel called, "Beyond Vulnerability: Innovative Adaptation Planning."
April 23-25 – National Adaptation Forum, Madison, WI: Editor, Natalie Ambrosio, will present on local adaptive capacity from a private sector perspective and Yoon Kim will also join the convening.
April 29 - May 1 – Ceres Conference 2019, San Francisco, CA: The Four Twenty Seven team will join investors and corporations at this annual gathering.
June 11 - 12 – RI Europe, London, UK: Hear Emilie Mazzacurati present on climate risk in financial markets and meet with Director, Europe, Nathalie Borgeaud, at Four Twenty Seven's booth.
Our mailing address is:
Four Twenty Seven
2000 Hearst Ave
Ste 304
Berkeley, CA 94709
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