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FEBRUARY 19, 2019 – SAN DIEGO, CALIFORNIA – Four Twenty Seven receives Climate Change Business Journal Awards for three climate change risk and resilience projects.
The Climate Change Business Journal (CCBJ) released its 10th annual CCBJ Business Achievement Awards, recognizing outstanding business performance in the climate change industry. CCBJ assesses markets and business opportunities across the emerging climate change industry and acknowledged Four Twenty Seven’s contributions to this field through our global dataset on climate risk in real estate, the development of the California Heat Assessment Tool and our contribution to the EBRD-GCECA initiative on Advancing TCFD Guidance on Physical Climate Risks and Opportunities.
Four Twenty Seven and GeoPhy earned the Technology Merit: Climate Change Risk Modeling and Assessment award for releasing the first global dataset on climate risk exposure in real estate investment trusts (REITs). REITs represent an increasingly important asset class that provides investors with a vehicle for gaining exposure to real estate portfolios. However, real estate is also increasingly affected by risks from climate change. Four Twenty Seven applied its scoring model of asset-level climate risk exposure to GeoPhy’s database of listed REITs holdings to create the first global, scientific assessment of REITs’ exposure to climate risk.
The California Heat Assessment Tool (CHAT) earned the Project Merit: Climate Change Adaptation and Resilience award for its innovative approach to helping public health officials, health professionals and residents understand what changing heat wave conditions mean for them, through a free online platform. CHAT is part of California’s Fourth Climate Change Assessment, a state-mandated research program to assess climate change impacts in California, and was developed by Four Twenty Seven, Argos Analytics, the Public Health Institute and Habitat 7 with technical support from the California Department of Public Health.
The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development and the Global Centre of Excellence on Climate Adaptation initiative on Advancing the TCFD Recommendations on Physical Climate Risks and Opportunities earned the Advancing Best Practices: Climate Change Adaptation and Resilience award. This project culminated in a conference and report building on Taskforce on Climate-related Financial Disclosure (TCFD) recommendations and providing common foundations for the disclosure of climate-related physical risks and opportunities. It identifies where further research or market action is needed so that detailed, consistent, industry-specific guidelines can be developed on the methodology for quantifying and reporting these risks and opportunities. Four Twenty Seven and Acclimatise provided the technical secretariat that led the working groups and authored the report.
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The Urban Land Institute, a cross-disciplinary real estate and land use network, and Heitman LLC, a global real estate investment firm, released a report on climate risk and response in the real estate sector. The paper explores the evolving understanding of climate risk in real estate and shares current best practices for measuring and managing risk. It highlights Four Twenty Seven’s asset-level risk screening of Heitman’s real estate portfolio and the Four Twenty Seven and GeoPhy analysis of climate risk exposure in REITs. Read the press release from the Urban Land Institute below, originally published on PR Newswire:
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LONDON, Feb. 5, 2019 /PRNewswire/ — A new report from the Urban Land Institute (ULI), a global multidisciplinary real estate organization, and Heitman LLC (Heitman), a global real estate investment management firm, points to the pressing need for greater understanding throughout the industry of the investment risks posed by the impacts of climate change. It also highlights proactive measures by Heitman and other leading firms to stay at the forefront of mitigation strategies and accurately price risk into investment decisions.
Climate Risk and Real Estate Investment Decision-Making explores current methods for assessing and mitigating climate risk in real estate, including physical risks such as catastrophes and transitional risks such as regulatory changes, availability of resources and attractiveness of locations. Both types of risks have financial impacts for real estate, including higher operational costs and declining property values. The report, released today at ULI’s Europe Conference in London, is based on insights from more than 25 investors and investment managers in Europe, North America, and Asia Pacific, as well as existing research.
“Understanding and mitigating climate risk is a complex and evolving challenge for real estate investors,” said ULI Global Chief Executive Officer W. Edward Walter. “Risks such as sea-level rise and heat stress will increasingly highlight the vulnerability not only of individual assets and locations, but of entire metropolitan areas. This report shows that Heitman and other leading ULI members are prioritizing this issue with provocative approaches to better gauge and develop mitigation strategies. Building for resilience, on a portfolio, property and citywide basis, is paramount to staying competitive. Factoring in climate risk is becoming the new normal for our industry.”
“Opportunities are emerging across the real estate industry for investment managers and investors to better assess climate risk and navigate the potential impacts of climate change on assets and portfolios,” said Maury Tognarelli, Heitman Chief Executive Officer. “More accurate, forward-looking data on the risks associated with climate change are becoming available, positioning the industry to incorporate climate risks into how investments are underwritten and portfolios constructed. Ultimately, we hope this report will spur discussion among real estate industry participants with the end-goal of improving the investment outcomes for our clients and constituents.”
The real estate industry as a whole has just begun the development of more advanced strategies to recognize, understand and manage risks, and for the most part presently relies on insurance to cover the majority of the shorter term, financial-oriented risks related to climate change, the report states. However, while insurance has remained generally attainable in risk-prone areas, being insured does not protect investors from a reduction in asset liquidity. That, along with the likelihood of future changes in insurance availability and costs, is prompting a growing number of investors and investment managers to explore new ways to build climate risks into their investment processes, including:
Whether or not their assets have already been directly affected by the impacts of climate change, “investors see climate considerations as a necessary layer of fiduciary responsibility to their stakeholders, as well as an opportunity to identify markets and assets that will benefit from a changing climate,” notes the report. While early adapters have committed resources to gain knowledge and improve awareness of climate risk, in the coming years, methods are likely to become more sophisticated, it adds.
“The industry needs to be able to better measure the value impact so it can base its future decision-making on a quantitative rather than qualitative understanding of the risks and the potential return on investment from investing in mitigation strategies for their assets.”
While awareness of climate risk is growing, none of the report’s interviewees have yet ruled out attractive investment markets solely because of that risk, the report says. Still, interviewees emphasized the need to invest in a “sensible and smart” way in markets where physical risks from climate change are evident.
Climate Risk shows that leading investment managers and institutional investors are at various points in the undertaking of resilience scans of their portfolios. These scans help to identify vulnerabilities and impacts resulting from sea-level rise, flooding, heavy rainfall, water stress, extreme heat, wildfires and hurricanes. This includes short-term considerations such as business disruption for building tenants as well as higher operating and capital costs caused by increased wear and tear on properties.
The report highlights Heitman’s use of emerging technology that combines next-generation climate maps with real estate data to manage climate risk. Providers of this technology use scientific climate models that project long-term, global climate change impacts and clarify the degree of exposure to both extreme weather events and chronic industry-disrupting fluctuations, such as rising seas. The report also shows how Heitman integrated the analysis into its investment decision-making, noting that the company also considers if and how an asset and the community in which it is located has already begun to mitigate climate risks. “The climate risk assessment contributes to a holistic approach (by Heitman) to constructing global property portfolios,” says the report. “If a portfolio is determined to have a higher-than-targeted exposure, it can be rebalanced over time through limiting new acquisitions or exiting existing assets exposed to a certain risk.”
As a whole, the industry needs to understand the pricing impacts of physical climate risks, and how climate change is likely to have a bigger impact on valuation in the future as asset and market liquidity are affected, the report says. It identifies several steps to raise awareness, such as:
“An eventual downward repricing of higher-risk assets will be the market’s way of redirecting capital to locations and individual assets where it is expected to be better insulated from these particular risks. This process will be painful for investors who are caught off guard, but those who are prepared have the potential to outperform,” the report concludes.
Climate Risk and Real Estate Investment Decision-Making was prepared through a collaborative effort between Heitman; ULI UK, which serves the institute’s members in the UK; and ULI’s Center for Sustainability and Economic Performance. The center provides leadership and support to real estate and land use professionals to invest in energy-efficient, healthy, resilient, and sustainable buildings and communities.
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For more on climate risk in real estate read Four Twenty Seven and GeoPhy’s assessment of asset-level risk exposure in real estate investment trusts (REITs) and find out more about our REITs data product.
Four Twenty Seven Wins Risk Markets Technology AwardNOVEMBER 27, 2018 – LONDON, UK – Four Twenty Seven Wins Risk Markets Technology Award for Alternative Data Vendor of the Year for 2019.
Investors who wish to develop a fully-informed view of their portfolios need forward-looking data on the impacts of climate change on corporations and public issuers that incorporate the most recent developments in climate science. Risk Magazine recognized Four Twenty Seven’s work to fill this void. “Rapid intensification of the effects of both acute climate events like hurricanes and wildfires and chronic effects like sea level rise and increases in temperatures present an increasingly meaningful type of exposure for investors,” said Emilie Mazzacurati, Four Twenty Seven Founder and CEO. “This risk is currently only priced into the market ex post – we see corrections in asset prices in the wake of events only to the extent that their exposure to these events is known.” Four Twenty Seven helps firms price the risk ex ante by extracting data from global climate models and other scientific datasets to project asset-level risk exposure to a number of hazards, including hurricane-force winds, sea level rise, flooding, heat stress and water stress. Four Twenty Seven’s database of risk exposures, now scores over one million corporate facilities representing 2,000 of the worlds largest companies, combining exposure with detailed data on market and supply chain characteristics. “Our data is catalyzing change across the financial sector,” said Mazzacurati. “Our analytics help leading investors and corporations understand climate change’s impact on their assets and take steps to reduce this risk by investing in resilience.” Four Twenty Seven’s clients include pension funds, asset managers, corporations, development banks and regulators, who use our analytics to understand risks in their existing portfolios, assess risks of potential asset acquisitions and engage with management teams to build resilience in supply chains and physical assets. Download the 2019 Risk Markets Technology Awards Announcement. Read Risk Magazine’s article. Newsletter: TCFD Reporting on the Rise
Four Twenty Seven Received ISAR HonoursOCTOBER 24, 2018 – GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – Four Twenty Seven received ISAR Honours for asset-level climate risk scores.
ISAR Honours recognized Four Twenty Seven’s contribution to developing best practices on corporate reporting. The Intergovernmental Working Group of Exports on International Standards of Accounting and Reporting (ISAR) supports progress on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by fostering corporate transparency, good governance and sustainability standards. Its awards aim to foster the dissemination of initiatives that improve global corporate reporting and integrate environmental, social and governance factors into reporting cycles. ISAR is convened through The United Nations Conference on Trade and Developments (UNCTAD). “Four Twenty serves governments and cities, corporations and financial institutions,” Four Twenty Seven’s Director, Europe, Nathalie Borgeaud said during the awards ceremony. “We inform about the physical climate risks they incur. We inform about floods, cyclones and sea level rise and we inform about extreme heat and droughts, for each of their assets, with forward-looking, science-driven data. In order for all to develop meaningful resilience strategies, we inform about the future that is knocking on our door. And we all know it is knocking hard.” ———————- Explore Four Twenty Seven’s award-winning equity risk scores and other climate data analytics that enable investors, corporations and governments to understand climate risk exposure and build resilience. Webinar: Climate Risk in Real EstateThis webinar on climate risk in real estate presents Four Twenty Seven and GeoPhy’s analysis of exposure to physical climate hazards in global real estate investment trusts (REITs). The presentations includes key findings from the white paper, Climate Risk, Real Estate, and the Bottom Line and a discussion of how physical climate data is leveraged in financial risk reporting for the real estate sector. Download the slides, including links to resources discussed during the presentations and additional Q&A slides based on the webinar. Summary
Read more about Four Twenty Seven and GeoPhy’s REITs data product and our other solutions for investors. PRI Webinar: Measuring and Managing Physical Climate RiskThis PRI webinar, hosted in conjunction with DWS, discusses recent research in identifying physical climate risks and integrating this information into investment decisions. DWS shares its process for leveraging Four Twenty Seven’s equity risk scores to create a climate-optimized index. Speakers
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The TCFD status report found that Europe had the highest percentage of companies integrating TCFD guidance into their disclosures, perhaps influenced by legislation such as
