One of the biggest challenges to fighting climate change gets little attention: Lack of essential data. We have an enormous amount of data showing that climate change is real and that dramatic steps must be taken to reduce emissions now. We have an enormous amount of data showing what is causing climate change: The burning of coal and other fossil fuels.
But we have hardly any data showing exactly how much emissions individual companies are responsible for, or which are shifting to cleaner energy and manufacturing, or which are taking climate risks into account.
Without that data, there is no way for the public to hold companies accountable, and no way for investors to gauge their true value. It also impacts policymakers’ ability to design well-informed and efficient environmental public policies.
In addition, when companies make bold promises without being transparent about how they are reaching them, it understandably breeds public cynicism – and opens the door to "greenwashing," where companies overpromise and under deliver.
Open platform
Environmental leaders are absolutely correct to criticize hollow commitments. But we must do more: We must make it possible for companies to report data that the public can use to hold them accountable. And that is easier said than done.
For instance: More than 500 financial firms representing 40% of global assets under management have signed on to achieve net-zero emissions across their investment portfolios, through the Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net-Zero. But privately, many of those leaders say: We don’t have the data we need to do it.
Here’s the challenge: If a bank finances a power plant, an auto factory, and a grocery chain, it is helping to finance emissions generated by each company and their supply chains. But right now, the bank doesn’t know how much emissions each is generating, and thus has little leverage to push the companies to reduce them. Nor does it know whether those companies have plans to reduce reliance on fossil fuels or address risks flowing from climate change.
To begin changing that, President Emmanuel Macron through One Planet, the United Nations, Bloomberg Philanthropies and the Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero are joining forces with a group of public and private partners to create an open-data public platform to aggregate and standardize corporate climate data. The goal is a one-stop shop where investors and insurers – or anyone else – can find reliable data about a company’s emissions and how well they are addressing them. This transparent data portal will allow for company-by-company comparisons that are now very difficult and help assess climate risks those companies face.
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