Data, analytics, and technology company Equifax UK announced the launch of its new Financed Emissions Calculator, aimed at enabling financial institutions to automate, measure and track their financed emissions, and streamline their sustainability reporting requirements.

Launched in partnership with Scottish data firm CienDos, the new cloud-based Financed Emissions Calculator will enable lenders to better determine the greenhouse gas emissions indirectly attributed to them via their lending and investment activities.
According to Equifax, the new solution comes as the lending and investing portfolio of a financial institution typically accounts for up to 95% of its total carbon emissions, which regulators increasingly require to be reported, while many banks are currently managing financed emissions using manual calculations based on high-level estimations.

Brad Davies, ESG Product Manager at Equifax UK, said:

“The role of financial institutions in helping to combat climate change is gaining significant attention, but indirect financed emissions associated with loans and other credit lines are among the most complex to track. By integrating environmental data with leading financial risk assessments, the Financed Emissions Calculator empowers UK lenders to measure and mitigate their climate impact. We’re excited to partner with CienDos to fill the knowledge gaps for clients with this first-to-market solution.”

According to the company, the new tool ingests structured and unstructured data from multiple public and private data sources, converts the data into structured data points, which are validated and quality-checked, and allows all data points to be traced directly back to their source, version and date, and assigned either a PCAF Data Quality Score, or CienDos Assessment Score (CAS). The company added that the solution’s calculation methodology is aligned to the latest PCAF methodology.

Equifax said that the new tool, based on its large database of commercial credit insights combined with emissions data from CienDos, will ensure that the emission calculations from every credit line of banks, lenders and other financial entities has an auditable and transparent carbon value.

Julia Salmond, Chief Executive at CienDos, said:

“Equifax and CienDos have a shared vision to simplify the complex reporting requirements around financial firms’ carbon footprints. As a critical player at the heart of the UK financial ecosystem, Equifax’s extensive commercial credit data successfully combines with our own market-leading emissions data technology to help transform the management of portfolio emissions for firms, delivering greater accuracy and precision for their financed emissions reporting needs.”