CDP to poll 3,700 firms on climate risks

www.environmental-finance.com
London, 12 February:

The Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP) has called on 3,700 companies to submit data on their climate change risks, as a survey reveals that three-quarters of the investment managers behind the project factor such information into their investment decisions. This is the seventh time the CDP has asked companies to respond to its questionnaire, which is going out to 900 more companies this year than in 2008.

CDP chief operating officer Paul Simpson said the questionnaire is to be sent for the first time to Russia's 50 top companies, and the 50 leading firms in central and eastern Europe. In Japan, 500 companies will receive the request, compared with 150 last year. "We are trying to match the CDP request to indexes that investors think are important," he told Environmental Finance.

More investors than ever are backing the CDP - some 475 institutional investors, with combined assets under management in excess of $55 trillion. Among the 90 additional signatories this year were BBVA, National Bank of Canada, Hyundai Marine and Fire, Impax Group and Nordea Investment Management. This compares with 385, managing $57 trillion last year, and just 35, with $4.5 trillion in assets, in the CDP's first report in 2003. In a survey of 80 CDP signatories, three-quarters said they factor climate change information into their investment decisions and asset allocations. Some 80% of these consider climate change to be important relative to other issues impacting their portfolio.

The survey found that investors predominantly use the CDP data to engage with corporations, but a handful of investors also said that systematically incorporating CDP data into financial analysis is in progress and a key goal. "We have seen an increase in investor interest in climate change and that's reflected in the number of new signatories. More investors are grappling with the data and it's that grappling that's the key - they are trying to work out how they should be systematically integrating it," Simpson said.

While acknowledging pockets of expertise in the industry, Simpson noted that many analysts were not clued up about climate risks and need more training to understand the issues. The survey, compiled by investment consultancy firm Mercer, will be published in March.