In recent years, there has been a significant increase in awareness about the hazards posed by climate change. As a result, research efforts have intensified with a particular emphasis on investigating the economic implications of climate change and exploring pathways to a more sustainable economy. To facilitate research on the banking sector’s possible role in this regard, multiple datasets related to both physical and transition risks are listed in the following. Typically, datasets on physical risks contain data on natural disasters or weather patterns, while datasets on transition risks focus on climate regulations, ESG ratings, and emission data. Additionally, data on banks’ commitment to “green goals” is listed.
Links to data sources
Bank of Italy Collection of Data and Methods to Evaluate Climate-related and Environmental Risks
The Occasional Paper No. 732, by the bank of Italy reviews data and methods to evaluate climate-related and environmental risks in Italy. It includes a census and review of over 30 databases related to climate and environmental risks.
Data Provider: Bank of Italy
Data Type: Collection of data related to climate and environmental risks
Availability: Free access online
Where can it be found? L. Lavecchia et al. (2022), Questioni di Economia e Finanza. Data and methods to assess climate-related and environmental risks in Italy. Bank of Italy. Occasional paper No. 732.
The database is used to explore the effects of physical and regulatory risks related to biodiversity loss on economic activity and asset values. First, a news-based measure of aggregate biodiversity risk is developed and analyzed how it varies over time. The authors also construct and publicly release several firm-level measures of exposure to biodiversity risk, based on textual analyses of firms’ 10-K statements, the holdings of biodiversity-related funds, and a large survey of financial professionals, regulators, and academics.
Data Provider: Stefano Giglio, Theresa Kuchler, Johannes Stroebel, Xuran Zeng
Level/Frequency: depending on the indicator (firm-/industry/county/country-level, yearly/ monthly)
Geographic Coverage: US/global
Time Range: ~2000-2022
Availability: Free access online
Where has it been used? Giglio, S., Kuchler, T., Stroebel, J., Zeng, X. (2023). Biodiversity Risk. Available at NBER.
Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP)
CDP, a non-profit organization based in the UK, has a mission to utilize measurement and information disclosure to enhance the management of environmental risks. It has the most comprehensive collection of self-reported environmental data in the world. Part of this data originates from an annual survey to companies and governments about their carbon emissions, investments in climate change, and environmental management strategies. From 2002 to 2016, CDP’s reach has expanded from the FTSE500 companies in the UK to approximately 6,000 firms globally. Although CDP typically sends the survey to publicly traded companies, these companies are often constituents of major stock market indices as well as specific industrial sectors such as electricity, fossil fuels, and transportation. Furthermore, CDP also provides a climate rating of funds (Climetrics) and an assessment of business activities’ impact on water (CDP Water Impact Index).
Data Provider: CDP
Level/Frequency: Firm-/regional-/state-level, annually
Geographic Coverage: Global
Availability: Free access online
Where has it been used? Kleimeier, S. and M. Viehs (2018). Carbon Disclosure, Emission Levels, and the Cost of Debt. Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2719665. And: Seltzer, L. H., L. Starks, and Q. Zhu (2022). Climate Regulatory Risk and Corporate Bonds. NBER Working Paper 29994.
Climate Actions and Policies Measurement Framework
The OECD Climate Actions and Policies Measurement Framework (CAPMF) is the most extensive internationally harmonised climate mitigation policy database to date. Developed under the International Programme for Action on Climate, the CAPMF tracks 130 policy variables, aggregated into 56 key climate actions and policies for the 1990-2022 period for OECD and OECD partner countries as well as the European Union as a block. The current edition of the database covers 49 countries.
For each policy, the CAPMF measures policy stringency, defined as the degree to which policies incentivise emissions reductions. The dataset provides the stringency values for all 130 policy variables as well as the average stringency values of the 56 aggregated climate policies for all countries and the entire time-period. It also calculates the average stringency and the number of adopted policies for sectors or policy areas (e.g. electricity, GHG emissions targets) and building block (e.g. sectoral policies, cross-sectoral policies, international policies), following the structure of the CAPMF as laid out in the related working paper. The structure of the CAPMF can be downloaded here.
Data Provider: OECD
Level: Policies and aggregated Ploicies on country-level
Geographic Coverage: 49 OECD and partner countries
Availability: Free access online
Time range: 1990-2022
Where has it been used? Nachtigall, D., et al. (2022), “The climate actions and policies measurement framework: A structured and harmonised climate policy database to monitor countries’ mitigation action”, OECD Environment Working Papers, No. 203, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/2caa60ce-en.
Climate Attention Index (CCPI)
We construct a climate attention index that measures the extent to which climate change is discussed in the news media. Our method focuses on major newspapers with a significant presence on Twitter across many countries. This approach has allowed us to compile nearly 24 million tweets, which we then aggregate at the country level across daily, weekly, monthly, and quarterly frequencies. We compare the aggregated text to a corpus of authoritative texts on climate change, similar to the method used by Engle et al. (2019). As of the date of this draft, our data coverage refers to a total of 25 countries that span a wide range of local languages, income levels, and geographical regions. Sample period from October 2014 to December 2022.
Data Provider: Arteaga-Garavito, Maria Jose and Colacito, Riccardo and Croce, Mariano Massimiliano and Yang, Biao
Level/Frequency: Country-level/ daily, weekly, monthly, and quarterly
Geographic Coverage: 25 countries
Time Range: October 2014 to December 2022.
Availability: Free access online
Where has it been used? Arteaga-Garavito, Maria Jose and Colacito, Riccardo and Croce, Mariano Massimiliano and Yang, Biao, International Climate News (June 28, 2023). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=4713016 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4713016
Climate Change Performance Index (CCPI)
The Climate Change Performance Index (CCPI) is an instrument to enable transparency in national and international climate politics. The CCPI uses a standardized framework to compare the climate performance of 59 countries and the EU, which together account for 92% of global greenhouse gas emissions. The climate protection performance is assessed in four categories: GHG Emissions, Renewable Energy, Energy Use and Climate Policy.
Data Provider: Germanwatch
Level/Frequency: Country-level, yearly
Geographic Coverage: Global
Time Range: since 2007 (updated annually)
Availability: Free access online
Where has it been used? Beyene, W., K. De Greiff, M. D. Delis, and S. R. G. Ongena. Too-Big-To-Strand? Bond Versus Bank Financing in the Transition to a Low-Carbon Economy (2021). CEPR Discussion Paper No. DP16692.
Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR)
Sustainalytics is a provider of environmental, social and governance assessment for responsible investment all over the globe. For each firm analyzed, Sustainalytics generates a profile of the organization’s CSR and compiles these profiles in a stepwise approach. First, it scrutinizes relevant organizational information from multiple sources such as financial accounts, organizational documentation, media reports and interviews with stakeholders. This results in a preliminary report on a
firm’s degree of sustainability, which is then sent to the firm for verification and correction.
The changes made by the firm are then checked and verified again by Sustainalytics. Furthermore, Sustainalytics also provides climate and emission data.
Data Provider: Sustainalytics
Geographic Coverage: Global
Availability: No free access to data
Where has it been used? Belasri, S., M. Gomes, and G. Pijourlet. Corporate social responsibility and bank efficiency. Journal of Multinational Financial Management (2020), Vol. 54,100612.
ECB’s Climate Change-related Indicators
The ECB and the national central banks of all EU Member States together have started developing statistical indicators – harmonised at the euro area level – for climate-related analysis. These indicators are meant to help to more effectively analyse climate risks that can affect monetary policy, price stability and the financial system. The first set of indicators was published in January 2023. Producing these indicators is complex and they are still subject to limitations, some of which are substantial.
The indicators can be divided into the sections sustainable finance, carbon emissions and physical risks. For example, the sustainable finance indicators give an overview of issuances and holdings of sustainable debt securities in the euro area. These indicators provide information on the proceeds raised to finance sustainable projects, and thus also on the progress of the transition to a net-zero economy. They are published in the ECB’s Statistical Data Warehouse (SDW) as part of the CSDB-Derived Securities Issues Statistics (CSEC) and the Securities Holdings Statistics (SHSS) datasets.
Data Provider: European Central Bank
Level/Frequency: Country-level, quarterly
Geographic Coverage: EU member states
Availability: Free access online
Where has it been used? ECB. Experimental indicators on sustainable finance.
Enforcement and Compliance History Online (ECHO) system
The Enforcement and Compliance History Online (ECHO) system incorporates Federal enforcement and compliance (FE&C) data from the Integrated Compliance Information System (ICIS), used to track federal enforcement cases. ICIS contains information on federal administrative and federal judicial cases under the following environmental statutes: the Clean Air Act (CAA), the Clean Water Act (CWA), the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA), the Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act (EPCRA) Section 313, the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA), the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA or Superfund), the Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA), and the Marine Protection, Research, and Sanctuaries Act (MPRSA).
Please note that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency provides a wealth of climate-related datasets.
Data Provider: United States Environmental Protection Agency
Geographic Coverage: United States
Time Range: Detailed information since 1996, updated regularly
Availability: Free access online
Where has it been used? Seltzer, L. H., L. Starks, and Q. Zhu (2022). Climate Regulatory Risk and Corporate Bonds. NBER Working Paper 29994.
Annually, Equator Principles Financial Institutions (EFPIs) report publicly on transactions that have reached Financial Close and on their EP (Equator Principles) implementation processes and experience. The reports include data on the total number of Project Finance (PF) transactions, Refinance and Acquisition Finance for PF transactions, Project-Related Corporate Loans (PRCL), and Refinance and Acquisition Finance for PRCL that reached Financial Close during the reporting period. EPFIs also report on the total number of Project Finance Advisory Services mandated during the reporting period. Furthermore, EPFIs will categorise projects based on the magnitude of potential environmental and social risks and impacts, including those related to Human Rights, climate change, and biodiversity.
Data Provider: Equator Principles
Level/Frequency: Bank-level, yearly
Geographic Coverage: Global
Availability: Free access online
Where has it been used? Ehlers, T., F. Packer, and K. de Greiff, Kathrin. The Pricing of Carbon Risk in Syndicated Loans: Which Risks Are Priced and Why? (June 1, 2021). Journal of Banking & Finance, Volume 136, 2022, 106180.
EU Emissions Trading System (ETS) data viewer
The EU ETS data viewer provides access to emission trading data contained in the European Union Transaction Log (EUTL). The EUTL is a central transaction log, run by the European Commission, which checks and records all transactions taking place within the trading system. The EU ETS data viewer provides aggregated data by country, by main activity type and by year on the verified emissions, allowances and surrendered units of the more than 15 000 stationary installations reporting under the EU emission trading system, as well as 1500 aircraft operators.
Please note that the European Environment Agency provides a wealth of climate-related datasets.
Data Provider: European Environment Agency
Level/Frequency: Country/activity-level, yearly
Geographic Coverage: European Union
Time Range: since 2005 (updated annually)
Availability: Free access online
Firm-level Climate Change Exposure
The database is based on a method which identifies from earnings conference calls the attention paid by financial analysts to firms’ climate change exposures. The method adapts a machine learning keyword discovery algorithm and captures exposures related to opportunity, physical, and regulatory shocks associated with climate change. The measures are available for more than 10,000 firms from 34 countries between 2002 and 2021. The measures are useful in predicting important real outcomes related to the net-zero transition, notably job creation in disruptive green technologies and green patenting, and they contain information that is priced in options and equity markets.
Data Provider: Zacharias Sautner, Laurence van Lent, Grigory Vilkov, and Ruishen Zhang
Level/Frequency: Firm-level, quarterly
Geographic Coverage: Global
Time Range: 2000-2022 (updated regularly)
Availability: Free access online
Where has it been used (earlier version)? Sautner, Z., L. van Lent, G. Vilkov, and R. Zhang (2020). Firm-level Climate Change Exposure. European Corporate Governance Institute – Finance Working Paper No. 686/2020.
Global Climate Risk Index 2021
The Global Climate Risk Index 2021 analyses to what extent countries and regions have been affected by impacts of weather-related loss events (storms, floods, heat waves etc.). Human impacts (fatalities) and direct economic losses were analysed. In the 2021 edition, the most recent data available — for 2019 and from 2000 to 2019 — were taken into account.
Data Provider: Germanwatch
Frequency: Yearly
Geographic Coverage: Global
Time Range: Since 2000
Availability: Free access online
Where has it been used (earlier version)? Huang, H.H., Kerstein, J. & Wang, C (2018). The impact of climate risk on firm performance and financing choices: An international comparison. Journal of International Business Studies 49, 633–656 (2018).
Greenhouse Gas Reporting Program (GHGRP)
Since 2010, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) requires each production facility emitting more than 25,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalents per year to report their emissions. The covered GHGs are Carbon Dioxide, Methane, Nitrous Oxide, and Fluorinated GHGs. The publicly available data covers a wide range of industries and account for a substantial share of total U.S. emissions. Nearly 8,000 facilities that belong to direct emitters are required to annually report their emissions, accounting for 3 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalents or roughly 50 percent of total U.S. emissions as of 2012.
Data Provider: U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)
Level/Frequency: Firm-level, yearly
Geographic Coverage: United States
Time Range: 2010-2021 (updated regularly)
Availability: Free access online
Where has it been used? Ivanov, I.T., M. S. Kruttli, and S. W. Watugala (2022). Banking on Carbon: Corporate Lending and Cap-and-Trade Policy. Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3650447.
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)
The data provided can be divided into three categories. Observations: observed data covering the physical climate (e.g. global distributions temperature and rainfall), atmospheric composition, socio-economic information (e.g. national population and income data), and impacts of climate change. Simulations: data produced from Integrated Assessment Models (IAMs), Carbon-cycle Models, General Circulation Models, and Earth System Models. Synthesis: future climate in world regions – an intercomparison of model-based projections for the new IPCC emissions scenarios. The socioeconomic baseline statistics have the following features…
Data Provider: Data Distribution Centre of IPCC
Level: State-level
Geographic Coverage: 195 countries
Time Point: Early to mid 1900s
Availability: Free access online
This database provides regional or country-by-country estimates of energy-related methane emissions. It provides a comparison of these estimates with energy-sector estimates from other publicly available sources and with estimates of methane emissions from other human activities. For coal, oil and gas, the tracker presents detailed estimates for the abatement potential, and costs or savings, from different technology and policy options. This tool also provides a snapshot of the policy measures in place to tackle methane emissions within each country and our assessment of what greater policy action could achieve.
Data Provider: International Energy Agency
Level/Frequency: Country/region-level, yearly
Geographic Coverage: Global
Time Range: yearly updated
Availability: Free access online
MSCI uses 35 criteria to assess and score ESG efforts in businesses: 13 Environmental; 16 Social; and 6 Governance. The 35 ESG criteria are weighted for impact and time horizon of risk and opportunity given a company’s core business and industry specific considerations. Thus, an MSCI ESG Rating measures long-term resiliency to industry specific ESG risks. Rules-based methodology identifies industry leaders and laggards. ESG risk exposure and management of risks relative to peers is also considered.
Data Provider: MSCI
Level: firm-level
Geographic Coverage: Global
Availability: No free access to data
Where has it been used? Abelli, L. D., and Mark Crowley (2022). Exploring Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) Criteria and Ratings in the US Banking Industry: An Analysis of the MSCI Databases. Journal of Management Science and Business Intelligence, 7(1), 11–19.
NatCatSERVICE is a global natural catastrophe loss database provided by re-insurance company Munich Re. It is one of the world’s most comprehensive databases on natural hazard-based disasters with more than 28 000 entries. It is based on over 200 sources worldwide, including news agencies, insurance companies, international agencies (UN, EU, Red Cross, etc.), scientific sources and weather and warning services. Every year it records between 600 and 900 hazardous events. It keeps track of all loss events concerning natural hazards that have resulted in material or human losses.
Data Provider: Munich Re
Frequency: Yearly summaries available
Geographic Coverage: Global
Time Range: Since 1980
Availability: No free access to data
Where has it been used? Kron, W., Steuer, M., Löw, P., and Wirtz, A. (2012). How to deal properly with a natural catastrophe database – analysis of flood losses. NHESS 12(3), 535–550.
RepRisk collects data about ESG performance (adverse ESG coverage) from more than 80,000 media, regulatory, and commercial documents in 15 different languages. RepRisk collects data following four steps: (1) screening and identification, (2) analysis and curation, (3) quality assurance, and (4) Sustainability. There are multiple aspects of ESG incidents in the RepRisk database. Among them is the RepRisk index (RRI) which is a proprietary algorithm dynamically capturing and quantifying a company’s or project’s reputational exposure to ESG and business conduct risks. This measure is an indicator of
reputational risk related to ESG issues and the business conduct of a company or project.
Data Provider: RepRisk
Level: Firm/project-level
Geographic Coverage: Global
Time Range: since 2007 (updated daily)
Availability: No free access to data
Where has it been used? He, R., X. Chen, C. Chen, J. Zhai, and L. Cui (2021). Environmental, Social, and Governance Incidents and Bank Loan Contracts. Sustainability 13, no. 4: 1885.
Revised Hurricane Database HURDAT 2
The National Hurricane Center (NHC) conducts a post-storm analysis of each tropical cyclone in its area of responsibility to determine the official assessment of the cyclone’s history. This analysis makes use of all available observations, including those that may not have been available in real time. The datasets contain the storm center location, wind speed, and atmospheric pressure for each North Atlantic/Pacific cyclone since 1851, in six-hour intervals. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration provides access to a wealth of further climate-related datasets covering the US-area.
Data Provider: Hurricane Research Division (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration)
Level/Frequency: Cyclone-level, 6-hourly
Geographic Coverage: United States
Time Range: Since 1851
Availability: Free access online
Where has it been used? Deryugina, T. (2017). The Fiscal Cost of Hurricanes: Disaster Aid versus Social Insurance. American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, 9 (3): 168-98.
NatCatSERVICE is a global natural catastrophe loss database provided by re-insurance company Munich Re. It is one of the world’s most comprehensive databases on natural hazard-based disasters with more than 28 000 entries. It is based on over 200 sources worldwide, including news agencies, insurance companies, international agencies (UN, EU, Red Cross, etc.), scientific sources and weather and warning services. Every year it records between 600 and 900 hazardous events. It keeps track of all loss events concerning natural hazards that have resulted in material or human losses.
Data Provider: The World Bank
Level/Frequency: Country-level, yearly
Geographic Coverage: Global
Time Range: 1960-2021
Availability: Free access online
Summary of latest updates: Wang, D., B. Gurphy, and F. Stewart (2023). The new Sovereign ESG Data Portal. World Bank’s Data Blog.
Spatial Hazard Events and Losses Database for the U.S. (SHELDUS)
SHELDUS is a county-level hazard data set for the U.S. and covers natural hazards such as thunderstorms, hurricanes, floods, wildfires, and tornados as well as perils such as flash floods, heavy rainfall, etc. The database contains information on the date of an event, affected location (county and state) and the direct losses caused by the event (property and crop losses, injuries, and fatalities) from 1960 to present.
Data Provider: Center for Emergency Management and Homeland Security (Arizona State University)
Level: County-level
Geographic Coverage: United States
Time Range: 1960-2021 (updated regularly)
Availability: Free access online
Where has it been used? Cortés, K. R., and P. E. Strahan (2015). Tracing Out Capital Flows: How Financially Integrated Banks Respond to Natural Disasters. FRB of Cleveland Working Paper No. 14-12r.
Summary of Deposits (SOD) – Annual Survey of Branche Office Deposits
The Summary of Deposits (SOD) is the annual survey of branch office deposits as of June 30 for all FDIC-insured institutions, including insured U.S. branches of foreign banks. All institutions with branch offices are required to submit the survey; institutions with only a main office are exempt.
Data Provider: Federal Deposit Insurance Company
Level/Frequency: Bank-level, yearly
Geographic Coverage: United States
Availability: Free access online
Where has it been used? Duqi, A., D. McGowan, E. Onali, and G. Torluccio. Natural disasters and economic growth: The role of banking market structure. Journal of Corporate Finance, Volume 71, 2021, 102101.
The database provides carbon emissions including scope 1-3 carbon emissions, on an annual basis since 2006 for around 12,000 firms in 2018. Those are virtually all listed firms in advanced and the major emerging economies. The data are taken by Trucost either from companies’ reports to CDP, corporate Annual Reports, Corporate Social Responsibility reports, corporate websites and companies’ feedback via the Trucost Environmental Register. Importantly, Trucost estimates missing data using an input-output model, recommended by the greenhouse gas (GHG) protocol to estimate the impact of investments. Trucost compares the estimates with the emissions that firms report and adds “missing” emissions if necessary.
Data Provider: S&P Global
Level/Frequency: Firm-level, yearly
Geographic Coverage: Global
Time Range: since 2006 (updated regularly)
Availability: No free access to data
Where has it been used? Ehlers, T., F. Packer, and K. de Greiff, Kathrin. The Pricing of Carbon Risk in Syndicated Loans: Which Risks Are Priced and Why? (June 1, 2021). Journal of Banking & Finance, Volume 136, 2022, 106180.
UN Online Tools for the financial sector
In order to fulfill its mission UNEP FI strives to provide a number of products and services directly aimed at facilitating the implementation of sustainable finance policies and practices in the global financial sector. The tools have been designed to be used by financial operators and include tools in the area of impact analysis, transition checks, natural Capital opportunities, risks and exposure, as well as human rights, drought risk and a guide to banking and sustainability.
Data Provider: UNEP FI
Level/Frequency: country-level
Geographic Coverage: Global
Time Range: real time
Availability: Free online access
Urgentem’s dataset provides a comprehensive time series of the Greenhouse Gas Protocol defined scope 1,2 and 3 emissions of the latest 5,500 global companies, with modelled data available for 30,000+ securities. The directly analysed dataset of 5,500 companies is compiled with information collected from public sources such as Annual Reports, Financial Reports, Sustainability Reports and information sourced from company websites.
Data Provider: Urgentem
Level/Frequency: Firm-Level / Yearly
Geographic Coverage: Global
Time Range: 2010-2020
Availability: No free access to data
Where has it been used? Alogoskoufis, S., N. Dunz, T. Emambakhsh, T. Hennig, M. Kaijser, C. Kouratzoglou, M.A. Muñoz, L. Parisi, and C. Salleo, (2021). ECB’s economy-wide climate stress test. Occasional Paper Series 281, European Central Bank.
The World Input-Output Database (WIOD, November 2016 Release) consists of a series of databases and covers 28 EU countries and 15 other major countries in the world for the period from 2000 to 2014. Central in the WIOD is a time-series of world input–output tables. A world input-output table (WIOT) provides a comprehensive summary of all transactions in the global economy between industries and final users across countries. In addition to a national input–output table, imports are broken down according to the country and industry of origin in a WIOT.
Data Provider: Groningen Growth and Development Centre
Level/Frequency: Country-/industry-level, annually
Geographic Coverage: EU + 15 major countries
Time Range: 2000-2014
Availability: Free access online
Where has it been used? Timmer, M. P., Dietzenbacher, E., Los, B., Stehrer, R. and de Vries, G. J. (2015). An Illustrated User Guide to the World Input–Output Database: the Case of Global Automotive Production. Review of International Economics., 23: 575–605.
Yearly Average Surface Temperature – Global Data Lab
This dataset provides information on annual surface temperature, humidity and precipitation around the globe. The data can be downloaded via the website and is presented online as maps showing national and yearly differences on a global, national or sub-national level.
Data Provider: Global Data Lab
Level/Frequency: National and Sub-national level, annually
Geographic Coverage: Global
Time Range: 1990-2022
Availability: online access (account necessary)