Until now financial institutions lamented that climate data is either non-existent, inaccessible, non-standardized, or in the worst case, fraudulent. That's about to change with the Net-Zero Data Public Utility initiative to be tested at some Swiss financial institutions.
Swiss banks and insurers will be testing and adding data to a new climate-transition information platform, Switzerland’s State Secretariat for International Finance (SIF) and financial industry associations said in a joint press release Monday.
The public-private Net-Zero Data Public Utility (NZDPU) initiative, created by French President Emmanuel Macron and UN Special Envoy for Climate Ambition and Solutions Michael R. Bloomberg last year, will be launched as a pilot program at the COP28, which the United Arab Emirates hosts in December.
In the meantime, institutions including Basellandschaftliche Kantonalbank, Helvetia, LGT Bank (Switzerland), Lombard Odier, Pictet, Suva, Swiss Life Asset Managers, UBS, and Zuercher Kantonalbank will be testing and adding to the platform, the statement said.
No More Excuses
In the future, there will be «no more excuses,» for companies to not report on climate objectives, Bloomberg’s vice-chair of Global Public Policy and former SEC chair Mary Schapiro said during a panel discussion with other members of the Climate Data Steering Committee during today’s Point Zero Forum held in Zurich.
The platform aggregates climate-transition data free of charge and encourages fintechs to build APIs and other tech solutions to access and disseminate this data.
«NZDPU is the logical and necessary consequence of the Swiss climate strategy to stop emitting greenhouse gases after 2050 and to become a Net-Zero society. The Asset Management Association Switzerland is convinced that NZDPU is the right tool to document the Net Zero transition by creating transparency and providing access as well as reliable data on the progress of CO2 emission reductions,» Asset Management Association Switzerland chairman Iwan Deplazes, said.
