The CO-Firm: New Evaluation Tool climateXcellence Helps to Identify Financial Risks and Opportunities in Relation to Climate Change

- The climateXcellence tool developed by the The CO-Firm allows scenario-based modelling of climate risks and opportunities. For the first time, businesses and investors can evaluate the materiality of climate risks on a profitability level. The risks of climate change increasingly affect the real and financial economy. Therefore experts recommend expanded reporting by all stakeholders on climate risks. With good cause: the Task Force on Climate Related Financial Disclosure (TCFD) assumes that by the end of this century assets worth 43 trillion US dollars, corresponding to 3.5 times China's national budget, will be at risk. Against this background, The CO-Firm has developed climateXcellence allowing companies and investors to determine their financial risks more easily and much faster, on the basis of predefined, recognized scenarios. "We conduct analyses in over 50 countries which cover more than 80 % of the global GDP," says Dr Nicole Röttmer, CEO of The CO-Firm. "We have analysed more than 33,000 companies, over 200,000 factories and 15,000 technical adaptation measures for climate risks and opportunities in a 2°C and 2.7°C scenario." The scenario analyses of The CO-Firm show: The transition creates more opportunities than risks when adjustment takes place early. Selected companies can realize up to 150 % growth potential of their EBITDA if they prepare early and target-oriented for a 2 °C world. If companies fail to act and adapt to the low-carbon transition, the earnings hit can materialize already in the short- to medium-term. In some sectors, impacts arise starting 2020. All findings of this work were made available on CO-Firm's website for 4 sectors: utilities, automotive, steel and cement. Renowned partners helped to develop the new tool: Allianz Global Investors, Allianz Climate Solutions, WWF Germany and the Investment Leaders Group of the University of Cambridge. ClimateXcellence was successfully tested within the EU-funded Energy Transition Risk Project (http://et-risk.eu/) in a consortium with 2° Investing initiative, S&P Global Market Intelligence, the University of Oxford and others. http://[email protected]+49-151-577-95-935