A Framework for Attributing Changes in Portfolio Carbon Footprint

Tracking a portfolio’s carbon footprint over time is challenging since it may be driven by changes in climate-related variables, portfolio rebalancing or financial variables. Our paper A Framework for Attributing Changes in Portfolio Carbon Footprint presents a framework that allows investors to understand to what extent changes in a portfolio’s carbon footprint are due to companies’ real-world decarbonization efforts, a portfolio manager’s investment decisions or changes in companies’ financing.

Our interactive tool enables you to explore different portfolios and gain insights into the primary factors influencing their carbon footprints.

By selecting the different portfolios, you will be able to visualize the attributions of changes in portfolio-level emissions. Our framework disentangles these changes by categorizing them into three primary drivers: changes in portfolio composition, changes in issuers' emissions, and changes in ownership and financing structure.