It takes clarity

to move forward

ASCOR is the first publicly available, independent, and open-source investor framework and database assessing the climate action and alignment of sovereign bond issuers.

Introducing ASCOR

The impact of climate change is becoming more severe, and the pressure on governments to act is urgent.

As part of their strategic response to climate change, investors are making commitments to reach net zero and to significantly reduce the greenhouse gas emissions associated with their investment portfolios, which includes sovereign debt. Currently, there is no universally coherent way to assess sovereign debt from a climate change perspective.

ASCOR (Assessing Sovereign Climate-related Opportunities and Risks) was designed to address this gap. As the first tool of its kind, ASCOR can help investors assess sovereign exposure to climate risk and engender greater transparency between issuers, financial institutions, and relevant stakeholders.

Meet our partners

ASCOR Partners

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Academic partner:

Academic partner:

Aktia

Aktia is a Nordic boutique manager and financial services group with history dating back to 1826. Aktia’s key focus areas include EMD and European credit. Aktia has a strong commitment to sustainability and ESG in all operations.

Aktia

Aktia is a Nordic boutique manager and financial services group with history dating back to 1826. Aktia’s key focus areas include EMD and European credit. Aktia has a strong commitment to sustainability and ESG in all operations.

Allspring Global Investments

Allspring Global Investments™ is an independent asset management firm committed to thoughtful investing, purposeful planning, and inspiring a new era of investing that pursues both financial returns and positive outcomes.

Amundi Asset Management

Amundi, the leading European asset manager, ranking among the top 10 global players, offers its 100 million clients - retail, institutional and corporate - a complete range of savings and investment solutions in active and passive management, in traditional or real assets. This offering is enhanced with IT tools and services to cover the entire savings value chain. A subsidiary of the Crédit Agricole group and listed on the stock exchange, Amundi currently manages nearly €1.9 trillion of assets.

Asia Investor Group on Climate Change

The Asia Investor Group on Climate Change (AIGCC) is an initiative to create awareness and encourage action among Asia’s asset owners and financial institutions about the risks and opportunities associated with climate change and low carbon investing. AIGCC provides capacity for investors to share best practice and to collaborate on investment activity, credit analysis, risk management, engagement, and policy.

BT Pension Scheme (BTPS)

The BT Pension Scheme (BTPS) is one of the largest private-sector pension schemes in the UK. It has c.270,000 members and c.£47bn of assets and pays out over £2.5bn in pension and other benefits every year. Established in 1984, BTPS has a long history as a responsible and engaged investor. As part of its responsible investment strategy, the Scheme fully integrates environmental, social and governance (ESG) factors into its investment process and promotes active stewardship of its portfolio companies and assets. In 2020, BTPS’ Trustees set an ambitious climate change target to be net zero by 2035.

Ceres

Ceres is a nonprofit organization working with the most influential capital market leaders to solve the world’s greatest sustainability challenges. Through our powerful networks and global collaborations of investors, companies, and nonprofits, we drive action and inspire equitable market-based and policy solutions throughout the economy to build a just and sustainable future.

Chronos

Chronos Sustainability was established in 2017 to deliver transformative, systemic change in the social and environmental performance of key industry sectors. Chronos is involved in a wide range of global transformation projects across the sustainability spectrum and develops tools and strategies to enable its clients to accelerate action and effect real-world outcomes at scale.

The Church of England Pensions Board

The Church of England Pensions Board provides pensions for 41,000 current and future members of its pension schemes and is committed to be net zero. It is a £3.5b AUM diversified fund invested in multiple asset classes including sovereign bonds. Together with BT Pension Fund the Board set up and co-leads the ASCOR Project. The Board also Chairs the Transition Pathway Initiative (TPI).

Colchester Global Investors

Colchester Global Investors is an independent, global government bond manager and was founded in1999 by Ian Sims, Chairman and Chief Investment Officer. Colchester manages approximately US$30bn across a variety of strategies: Global Bond, Global Green Bond, Global Inflation-Linked Bond, Local Currency Emerging Market Debt and Global Unconstrained Alpha.

Investor Group on Climate Change

The Investor Group on Climate Change (IGCC) is a not-for-profit member organisation that aims to accelerate progress on climate change by connecting, collaborating, and advocating on behalf of Australian and New Zealand institutional investors.

The Institutional Investors Group on Climate Change

The Institutional Investors Group on Climate Change (IIGCC) is the European membership body for investor collaboration on climate change and the voice of investors taking action for a prosperous, low carbon future. IIGCC has more than 350 members, mainly pension funds and asset managers, across 23 countries, with over €51 trillion in assets under management.

Franklin Templeton Investments

Franklin Templeton is a global investment management organization with over $1.4 trillion in AUM and serving clients in over 155countries. The company offers specialization on a global scale, bringing extensive capabilities in fixed income, equity, alternatives and multi-asset solutions.

MFS Investment Management

MFS launched the first open-ended mutual fund in the US in 1924. Today, MFS is a global investment manager offering fixed income, equity and quantitative solutions to financial intermediaries and institutional clients around the world. Our purpose is to create long-term value responsibly for our clients.

The Net-Zero Asset Owner Alliance

The Net-Zero Asset Owner Alliance is a member-led initiative of 84 institutional investors, with over US$11 trillion in assets under management, committed to transitioning their investment portfolios to net-zero GHG emissions by 2050. 

Ninety One

Ninety One is an active, global investment manager with a strong emerging markets heritage based between London and Cape Town.  It was established in South Africa in 1991, as Investec Asset Management.

Principles for Responsible Investment (PRI)

The Principles for Responsible Investment (PRI) is the world’s leading proponent of responsible investment. With an international signatory network of more than 5,000 organisations, PRI works to support its signatories in incorporating responsible investment factors into their investment and ownership decisions.

Sura Asset Management

SURA Asset Management is Latin America’s largest non-banking manager of financial assets, and the leader in the pensions industry in the region. SURA Asset Management is a company that specializes in pensions, savings, asset management, and investment, and is present in México, El Salvador, Colombia, Peru, Chile and Uruguay.

Transition Pathway Initiative (TPI) Global Climate Transition Centre

The TPI Global Climate Transition Centre is an independent, authoritative source of research and data into the progress being made by the financial and corporate world in making the transition to a low-carbon economy. It is based at the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at the London School of Economics (LSE).

Academic partner:

07 February 2022

Webinar: Introducing the ASCOR Project

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Our objective

A coalition of international investors exceeding $5trn in AUM have created the ASCOR project. The ASCOR project is the first publicly available, independent, and open-source investor framework and database to assess the climate action and alignment of sovereigns.

Making a difference

Clarity

The ASCOR tool identifies the most critical and publicly available climate data points to be used in sovereign debt financial analysis, thus reducing uncertainty around what information is needed.

Transparency

ASCOR’s methodology and third-party assessments will be fully publicly available and, in understanding what investors wish to learn, issuers can then share relevant, climate change related information.

Dialogue

ASCOR will open communication channels and facilitate greater dialogue between private investors and sovereign bond issuers, enabling issuers to demonstrate their climate change progress more easily over time, attract additional investment, and build trust.

Action

Through clarity, transparency, and dialogue, the ASCOR project has the potential to build investor confidence in governments’ climate change goals, which will encourage the redirecting of finance to build more resilient societies.

Our request

We believe ASCOR has the potential to fill an important information gap and be a welcome addition to the limited toolkit that sovereign bondholders and sovereign debt issuers currently have. We are keen to engage with key stakeholders within sovereign issuers, development banks, and relevant parties to help promote industry buy-in, ensure it is effective, and well understood.

Broad multi-stakeholder feedback on the initial ASCOR framework is crucial. We welcome written feedback through this online survey by March 31st, 2023.Otherwise, to learn more about the framework, attend a roundtable, or provide feedback, please get in touch.

Get in touch

Our timeline

February 2023

We have published the ASCOR Consultation Report, explaining the overall framework, and launch a public survey seeking to obtain feedback. In parallel, we will convene virtual and in-person regional roundtables to generate greater insights.

Q2-Q3 2023

We will conduct assessments of an initial 25 countries and share respective results with sovereign issuer representatives for feedback.

Q4 2023

We will publish the ASCOR Final Report and the pilot country assessments. In the following years, we will assess remaining sovereign debt issuing countries, launch, and integrate this data into the ASCOR tool, which will be regularly updated over time.

It takes clarity to move forward...

Resources and media

REPORT
07 February 2023
A framework to assess sovereign bond issuers on climate change: Consultation report

ASCOR will allow investors to assess governments’ climate-related commitments, their policy frameworks (including carbon pricing, energy subsidies, the phase-out of combustion vehicles, deforestation and land use policies) and the actions they are taking to ensure that the benefits of the low-carbon transition and of adaptation are shared among their citizens.

MEDIA
07 February 2023
ASCOR Consultation to Assess Sovereign Debt Issuers on Climate Change  

The impacts of climate change become more severe and the pressure on governments to act increases as each year passes. As part of their strategic responses to the risks and opportunities presented by climate change, investors are making overarching commitments to contribute to the transition towards net zero greenhouse gas emissions by significantly reducing the emissions associated with their investment portfolios.

REPORT
13 June 2022
The ASCOR Project: Progress report

ASCOR will allow investors to assess governments’ climate-related commitments, their policy frameworks (including carbon pricing, energy subsidies, the phase-out of combustion vehicles, deforestation and land use policies) and the actions they are taking to ensure that the benefits of the low-carbon transition and of adaptation are shared among their citizens.

MEDIA
17 August 2022
Sovereign engagement: The next frontier for fixed-income investors?

Net-zero commitments are prompting asset managers and owners to address the climate implications of investing in government debt.

MEDIA
28 June 2022
Sovereign debt investors stress emerging markets gap in new climate risk metrics

The ASCOR project is expected to provide a framework of reporting and measurement that recognises the different development statuses and funding needs of governments.

MEDIA
27 July 2022
Unlocking Emerging Markets

Mobilising sovereign debt for clean energy projects in emerging markets can have a big positive impact, but it’s not without its challenges. ESG factors, alongside other risks, have long played a part in determining an investor’s decision to channel capital into emerging markets (EMs).

MEDIA
24 June 2022
How Green is Government Debt?

Consistent data on sovereign climate risks is crucial, says Victoria Barron, ASCOR Chair and Head of Sustainable Investment, BT Pension Scheme. Governments know they must attract ESG investors to sovereign debt if they are to meet their net zero carbon emission targets by 2050.

MEDIA
16 September 2021
Announcing the Advisory Group for the ASCOR Project

The ASCOR Project has been established to provide investors with a common lens to understand sovereign exposure to climate risk and how governments plan to transition to a low-carbon economy.

MEDIA
26 May 2021
“Cutting Out the Noise” on Sovereign Bonds

As sustainable bond issuance continues to grow, a new project aims to bring clarity and simplicity to sovereign bonds – the “poor relation” of responsible investment.

MEDIA
14 May 2021
The ASCOR Project: Assessing Sovereign Climate-related Opportunities and Risks

Target setting frameworks have been evolving, including IIGCC’s Net Zero Investment Framework and the AOA’s Target Setting Protocol. In addition, the PRI has recently published guides specifically focussing on ESG incorporation and engagement for sovereign bondholders.

View more

About us

The Assessing Sovereign Climate-related Opportunities and Risks (ASCOR) Project is led by asset owners, asset managers and investor networks. ASCOR is co-chaired by Victoria Barron, BT Pension Scheme Management, and Adam Matthews, Church of England Pensions Board. ASCOR was established with the UN-convened Net-Zero Asset Owner Alliance (AOA), Ceres, the Institutional Investors Group on Climate Change (IIGCC), the Principles for Responsible Investment (PRI), and Sura Asset Management, who are all part of ASCOR’s Steering Committee. The project is supported by Chronos Sustainability. 

Academic partner

ASCOR’s academic partner is the Transition Pathway Initiative (TPI) Global Climate Transition Centre, based at the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment, London School of Economics and Political Science.

Advisory Committee

The ASCOR Advisory Committee, who are among the funders of the current stage of the project, is composed of the Steering Committee members and representatives from Aktia Bank, Allspring Global Investments, Amundi Asset Management, Colchester Global Investors, Franklin Templeton, MFS Investment Management, and Ninety One. Additional partners to the project include the investor networks Investor Group on Climate Change (IGCC) and Asia Investor Group on Climate Change (AIGCC).

To learn more about the framework please get in touch.