Northern Trust announces new enhancements to ESG Analytics for sustainable future

By Pavithra R

Northern Trust has announced new enhancements to its environmental, social, and governance (ESG) risk exposure analytics capabilities, including new reporting for key environmental data categories. The upgrades are in alignment with the reporting recommendations of the Taskforce for Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD) – an initiative by the Financial Stability Board to develop consistent climate-related financial risk disclosures.

The new feature is expected to assist clients, typically asset owners such as pension funds, to interrogate specific environmental risk indicators for their investments. It also delivers a new ‘ESG Insights: Environment’ report, providing investors with access to environmental analytics using a range of factors including carbon footprint analysis.

The resulting information will help institutions to engage with asset managers and stakeholders around the environmental impact of their investment portfolio, as well as to generate data and analytics for publishing in their annual disclosures. Its detailed information helps clients in determining if they are meeting sustainable investment goals and satisfying ever-increasing regulatory requirements.

Institutions can use the information to:

1. Gain fund-level oversight of environmental risks and drill-down to compare critical scores and carbon footprint metrics across individual managers, portfolios, countries or sectors
2. Align themselves to sustainable investment frameworks, such as those of the United Nations Principles for Responsible Investment (UNPRI)
3. Monitor changes in a fund’s environmental risk profile over time, to help manage potential stakeholder concerns, financial or reputational risk

“Environmental factors are the driver behind a number of initiatives requiring greater monitoring of material risks and increased disclosures. Our enhanced capabilities support clients in both areas – and can help them more closely incorporate the ‘E’ of ‘ESG’ into their decision-making. Northern Trust is committed to providing clients with deep analytical insights as they strive to meet their ESG responsibilities,” said Serge Boccassini, product lead, Investment Accounting, and Analytic Solutions at Northern Trust.

Recently, Northern Trust partnered with BlackRock as part of the Whole Office Strategy.

Founded in Chicago in 1889, Northern Trust Corporation is a provider of wealth management, asset management, asset servicing, and banking to corporations, institutions, affluent families and individuals. It has global presence with offices in 22 U.S. states and Washington, D.C., and across 22 locations in Canada, Europe, the Middle East, and the Asia-Pacific region.