Corporate Climate Indices

In response to the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which determined that limiting global warming to 1.5°-2.0° Celsius is the best chance to avoid the worst consequences of climate change, the European Union (EU) and United Kingdom (UK) agreed to work towards achieving net zero carbon emissions by the year 2050. To achieve that goal, the Paris Agreement was signed by the EU and 192 countries.

The Climate Index series (“Climate Indices”) is a range of fixed income indices that incorporate ESG screening criteria along with a carbon reduction methodology to support the transition to net zero carbon emissions by 2050. The series includes indices that are subject to the requirements for labelling as Paris Aligned Benchmarks and Climate Transition Benchmarks, under EU and UK Benchmarks Regulation (BMR).

The Climate Indices start with an existing ICE Corporate bond index (the “Parent Index”). For each Parent Index, there are six climate variants designed to track different combinations of screening and carbon reduction approaches. All six of the index variants have certain common key elements but specific targets and/or exclusionary filters differ from one to the next.

Read Climate Indices rules & methodology

Corporate ESG Indices

Corporate ESG Indices can be used to filter out securities of companies with certain business involvement and tilt toward those companies with more attractive ESG risk scores. In addition to the data typically used when compiling bond indices (e.g. reference data, evaluations, credit ratings, etc.), Corporate ESG Indices also incorporate Sustainalytics ESG Ratings. History is available from 2016, providing insight into one of the most volatile periods of corporate bond indices. Corporate ESG Indices may employ any of the following methodologies:

Green, Social and Sustainable Index

With history going back to 2018, the Green, Social and Sustainable Index tracks securities issued for green, social or sustainable purposes. Qualifying bonds must have a clearly designated use of proceeds that is outlined in the ICMA Green Bond Principals, ICMA Social Bond Principles or the ICMA Sustainability Bond Principles. Green, social and sustainable use of proceeds are segmented into individual indices.

Sustainability-Linked Bond Index

The Sustainability-Linked Bond Index tracks the performance of securities issued for qualified sustainability-linked purposes. Qualifying bonds have coupons or a redemption price tied to specific goals contributing to sustainability (from an environmental and/or social and/or governance perspective) as outlined by the ICMA Sustainability-Linked Bond Guidelines.

Global Government Carbon Reduction Indices

Global Government Carbon Reduction Indices tilt the weights of constituent countries to lower the weighted average carbon footprint of the overall index while helping to minimize tracking error versus the starting capitalization-weighted Parent Index. The information used to compile the Global Government Carbon Reduction Indices is based, in part, on CO2 per capita data published in the Emissions Database for Global Atmospheric Research (EDGAR) Carbon Data Report. The methodology for the Global Government Carbon Reduction Indices has been applied to a number of our most popular Global, Euro and Emerging Markets Government Indices.