SAN FRANCISCO, Calif., December 14, 2022 – Today, Linux Foundation’s OS-Climate announced the public release of open source Carbon Footprint Datasets for Sovereign Bonds, consistent with the 2nd version of the Global GHG Accounting and Reporting Standard for the Financial Industry, a methodology published by the Partnership for Carbon Accounting Financials (PCAF) on 14-Dec.
PCAF is a global partnership of financial institutions that work together to develop and implement a harmonized approach to assess and disclose the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions associated with their loans and investments.
Dr. Udo Riese, Global Head of Risk and Monitoring at Allianz Investment Management (AIM) SE, said, “For us, creation of these datasets is further demonstration that Open Source best practices foster innovation and speed to delivery. As an active participant in OS-Climate, our goal is to help realize its mission: to build a platform of open data and open-source analytical tools that boosts large-scale capital flows into climate change mitigation, adaptation, and resilience worldwide. Providing high-quality PCAF Sovereign footprint data can help accelerate data-driven climate aligned finance and investing.”
The PCAF methodology defines Scope 1, Scope 2, and Scope 3 carbon emissions for Sovereigns like the GHG Protocol’s definition for Community-Scale Greenhouse Gas Inventories (Cities). The sovereign footprint datasets, now available as a public good without restriction, include production and consumption emissions as well as intensity measures by country. Currently, the calculated data is available with history from 1990 until 2020/21. Investors around the globe can download the data and include it into their Scope 3 category 15 reporting.
Vincent Caldeira, Red Hat’s Chief Technology Officer for APAC, noted that the “PCAF Sovereign Carbon Footprint Datasets are a great example of leveraging the capabilities of OS-Climate Data Commons to provide open data with full transparency and traceability on source data and methodology implementation. This builds trust in the user community and opens the door to more industry collaboration in this space.”
Soon after PCAF began developing the methodology, the OS-Climate community saw the need for an open data solution. First, members and individual contributors jointly developed a proof-of-concept based on a pre-release version of the PCAF methodology. Then, OS-Climate’s agile development approach allowed the community to quickly iterate as the PCAF methodology evolved under the UN-convened Net-Zero Asset Owner Alliance’s public consultation on the third version of the Target Setting Protocol (TSP).
“OS-Climate is in unique in the sustainable finance ecosystem. Our community can rapidly translate written frameworks and methodologies into data and technology solutions,” said OS-Climate Founder & CEO Truman Semans. “Our work is fully transparent and benefits from many contributing stakeholders, allowing OS-C to quickly translate words to models to code to climate-aligned action.”
To learn more about the project and obtain supporting documentation, click here. To access the PCAF Sovereign datasets, click here. For membership information and how to get involved in OS-Climate, click here.
About OS-Climate
Founded in 2018, OS-Climate is a member-driven, non-profit Community of Practice & Action, hosted by the Linux Foundation (LF). OS-Climate’s members include Allianz, Amazon, BNY Mellon EY, Federated Hermes, Goldman Sachs, London Stock Exchange Group, the Net Zero Asset Owner Alliance, Ortec Finance, Red Hat, S&P Global, Climate Policy Institute, Ecole Polytechnique de Paris, OpenEarth Foundation, GLEIF, and World Benchmarking Alliance.
About the Linux Foundation
Founded in 2000, the Linux Foundation and its projects are supported by more than 2,950 members. The Linux Foundation is the world’s leading home for collaboration on open source software, hardware, standards, and data. Linux Foundation projects are critical to the world’s infrastructure including Linux, Kubernetes, Node.js, ONAP, Hyperledger, RISC-V, and more. The Linux Foundation’s methodology focuses on leveraging best practices and addressing the needs of contributors, users, and solution providers to create sustainable models for open collaboration. For more information, please visit linuxfoundation.org.
