FAQs

FinanceMap is an online, publicly available platform by global climate-risk think tank InfluenceMap which examines the financial sector through a climate lens. We analyze financial institutions' climate performance on top-line strategy, financing and investment portfolios, stewardship, and shareholder resolutions using industry-recognized benchmarking standards.

FinanceMap is produced and managed by global climate-risk think tank InfluenceMap.

FinanceMap holistically assesses financial institutions’ asset management, banking, and policy engagement activities through a climate lens. FinanceMap deploys two types of methodologies: (i) qualitative assessments based on industry benchmarks and (ii) portfolio analysis. We analyze institutions’ top-line climate governance and strategy, asset management portfolios and stewardship, bank lending and underwriting, and policy engagement activities.

FinanceMap uses a variety of data sources, qualitative and quantitative, to assess financial institutions' climate performance.

Our qualitative analyses use institutions' websites and disclosures (e.g. stewardship reports, sustainability reports), third-party sources (e.g. PRI Transparency Reports, CDP responses), regulatory disclosures, and reputable media reports. Additionally, FinanceMap’s Stewardship analysis uses the Insightia voting module to assess voting on climate-related shareholder resolutions.

Our quantitative research uses a combination of data sources to identify portfolios, including Refinitiv and Bloomberg. Our analysis of Portfolio Paris Alignment is based on the PACTA tool, using company-level data provided by Asset Impact.

FinanceMap’s Climate Governance, Strategy, Targets, and Policies analysis assesses statements financial institutions are making on how they are incorporating climate issues into their decision-making and operations. This qualitative methodology is adapted from Task Force on Climate-Related Financial Disclosures (TCFD) recommendations, Net Zero Banking Alliance (NZBA) and Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net-Zero (GFANZ) initiative reporting, and IPCC and IEA technology pathways.

From these, this qualitative methodology assesses four sub-areas based on the TCFD's recommendations — Governance, Strategy, Risk Management, and Metrics and Targets — as well as science-based policy sub-areas to measure alignment of a financial institution's technology positions with the science of climate change

For an in-depth explanation, please refer to our Methodology.

FinanceMap's methodology to assess climate stewardship process activities was originally based on key aspects of the UK Financial Reporting Council's 2020 Stewardship Code, and has since been expanded to incorporate other industry benchmarks, such as Net Zero Asset Managers and Net Zero Asset Owner Alliance guidance. These benchmarks provide ambitious frameworks and detailed definitions of what constitutes effective stewardship.

FinanceMap’s methodology breaks the stewardship process down into a set of sub-activities and looks for evidence associated with these across publicly available data sources. The methodology assessment queries are divided into three key pillars (i) Stewardship Frameworks and Processes, (ii) Climate Stewardship Actions, and (iii) Governance, Transparency, and Voting.

For an in-depth explanation, please refer to FinanceMap's Methodology.

FinanceMap identifies climate-related resolutions using the Insightia voting module. Resolutions with clearly defined Paris-aligned outcomes are included, given they are (i) raised at companies from high emitting sectors and (ii) not backed by company management. This method excludes both vague resolutions with uncertain outcomes and overly prescriptive resolutions.

FinanceMap calculates asset managers' percentage support for climate-ambitious resolutions for each year from 2019 to present. Each year's percentage support feeds into an asset manager's stewardship assessment, with high support percentages reflecting positively.

The full list of assessed resolutions can be found here. Since 2019, FinanceMap has included over 240 resolutions to assess investor support of climate-related issues.

InfluenceMap’s methodology for assessing lobbying on sustainable finance policy closely follows InfluenceMap’s established methodology on climate policy engagement. This assessment searches a variety of public data sources for evidence of company engagement with policy processes.

Under our assessment of sustainable finance lobbying, InfluenceMap considers engagement on all financial policies which intersect with climate and/or other sustainability issues. The analysis takes into account both the engagement of the financial institution and the activities of industry associations they hold membership of.

Please refer to our LobbyMap program's methodology for an in-depth explanation.

FinanceMap calculates a portfolio’s fossil fuel exposure by flagging companies which are primarily active in fossil fuel production value chains on the basis of their BICS, GICS, and NAICS sector classifications.

FinanceMap defines green companies on the basis of the EU taxonomy for sustainable activities and Bloomberg data. Specifically, all companies with over 75% of revenue deriving from activities which demonstrate substantial contribution to climate change mitigation under the EU taxonomy are considered “green” under this methodology.

For more detailed explanations of these definitions, please refer to FinanceMap's Methodology.

FinanceMap’s portfolio alignment metric is based on the PACTA methodology. This tool considers the forecasted real-economy activities of the companies held by the portfolio. It compares these real-economy activities over a five-year forward-looking timespan to a Paris-aligned evolution of similar assets’ production as prescribed by the IEA Net Zero Emissions by 2050 Scenario (NZE). This gives an assessment of a portfolio's Paris alignment at the level of specific production technologies. FinanceMap currently covers production in four sectors with significant climate risk: automotive, electric power, upstream oil and gas production, and coal mining.

For an in-depth elaboration of FinanceMap's portfolio Paris alignment methodology, please refer to the Methodology page.

The roadmap used by FinanceMap, the IEA NZE, currently only provides technology-level pathways granular enough for PACTA analysis in the automotive, power, coal mining, and oil & gas extraction sectors. As a result, FinanceMap's portfolio analysis is limited to these sectors.

FinanceMap is working to expand this coverage in the future in order to include additional climate-relevant sectors in our analysis.

A fund’s Paris Alignment score and exposure metrics are calculated on the basis of the shareholdings of the fund. An asset manager’s overall portfolio is analyzed by compiling the holdings of all its managed funds to create an aggregate portfolio. This aggregate portfolio is then scored on its Paris Alignment and exposure, as if it were one large fund.

The asset manager’s aggregate portfolio scores are therefore not directly calculated as a weighted average of its funds’ scores.

The current FinanceMap research focuses on listed equity holdings. The FinanceMap team intends to incorporate analysis of corporate bond holding data in future releases.

For any further inquiries or questions, please refer to our Methodology or contact us at financemap@influencemap.org.