MSCI has launched Total Portfolio Footprinting, a tool developed to help asset managers measure carbon emissions across their investment portfolios.

The tool is designed to understand the climate impact of investment activities, improve the granularity of climate reporting for all asset classes and subsets, as well as benchmark climate progress against targets or industry peers. 

Measuring financed emissions can support investment managers in identifying the parts of their total portfolio that contribute the most. It also allows them to set targets to reduce their emissions and monitor them over time against a baseline, MSCI said. 

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"The introduction of climate-related regulation and increasing stakeholder demands are putting greater scrutiny on financial institutions such as banks, insurers and asset managers as they seek to measure climate risk across their investment portfolios," said Eric Moen, global head of ESG and climate at MSCI. 

"Total Portfolio Footprinting creates a snapshot of financed emissions across asset classes and subsets, giving institutions clearer visibility over where they stand today in relation to their climate commitments and obligations."

This tool, which is also available to banks and insurers, follows the launch of MSCI's Climate Lab, the Net-Zero Tracker and Implied Temperature Rise, which aim to measure how companies align to global temperature targets.