Ethos and the World Benchmarking Alliance (WBA) have joined forces with the French Environment and Energy Management Agency (ADEME) and the French Forum for Responsible Investment (FIR, French SIF) to carry out detailed analyses of the climate plans that European companies will be presenting to their shareholders this year.
Ahead of the 2024 general meeting season, Ethos has teamed up with the French institution ADEME, the French association FIR and the WBA to assess the credibility and relevance of European companies’ climate plans submitted to their shareholders for approval this year. Detailed analysis sheets will be published on the FIR and Finance ClimAct websites before the "Say on Climate" votes of listed companies in Europe, including the UK and Switzerland, to enable shareholders to vote wisely.
In recent months, Ethos has strengthened its expertise and now has science-based analysis tools that enable it to better assess the credibility of climate plans and strategies. In particular, in June 2023 Ethos developed and published a new methodology which, among other things, assigns a temperature score to listed companies, i.e. the global temperature increase that would be reached in 2100 if the global economy were to act with the same ambition and the same climate performance as the analysis.
This new methodology, entitled "Ethos climate transition ratings", is partly based on the ACT ("Assessing Low-Carbon Transition") methodology, developed by the ADEME in 2015 to assess a company's ability to become part of a low-carbon economy. This advanced ACT methodology considers a company's objectives, investments, activities, governance, value chain, lobbying and business model from a climate protection perspective.
As early as 2022, the FIR began publishing factsheets assessing the degree of climate alignment of companies organising "Say on Climate" votes. In 2023, ADEME and FIR joined forces to study and assess the climate plans submitted by French companies to their shareholders for a vote, using the ACT methodology. The participation of Ethos and WBA this year will enable these assessments to be extended to all European companies. Ethos' analysts will be responsible in particular for the ACT assessments of Swiss-listed companies that will carry out "Say on Climate" votes.
For Vincent Kaufmann, CEO of the Ethos Foundation, "it is essential for shareholders to be able to rely on robust evaluation systems that allow them to assess the credibility of the climate strategies implemented by companies. Thanks to this partnership, we will have an effective tool with which to assess the relevance of the climate plans submitted to shareholders for approval.
