As concerns over climate change continue to grow, so do concerns over carbon asset risk. With the goal of promoting ESG transparency, S&P Dow Jones Indices offers four carbon exposure metrics for our global indices to help market participants understand, measure, and manage carbon risk.

Carbon Exposure Metrics

Carbon Footprint
The aggregation of operational and first-tier supply chain carbon footprints of index constituents per USD 1 million invested.
Carbon Efficiency
The aggregation of operational and first-tier supply chain carbon footprints of index constituents per USD 1 million in revenue.
Weighted Average Carbon Intensity
The weighted average of individual company intensities (operational and first-tier supply chain emissions over revenues), weighted by the proportion of each constituent in the index.
Fossil Fuel Reserves
The carbon footprint that could be generated if the proven and probable fossil fuel reserves owned by index constituents were burned per USD 1 million invested.

S&P Dow Jones Indices calculates these metrics using S&P Global Trucost data and analysis to determine the carbon exposure of the companies in our indices. The S&P Global Trucost analysis covers 14,000 companies, representing 99% of global market capitalization.

In the absence of company disclosure, estimations are provided using S&P Global Trucost’s granular, multi-sector assessment of company business activities and proprietary environmentally extended input-output model. The result is a complete environmental performance profile, encompassing company operations and supply chain tiers back to raw materials extraction.

Learn more about how these metrics are calculated.


The S&P Carbon Efficient Indices leverage the carbon efficiency metric to reduce exposure to high-carbon companies in a systematic way.

S&P Global Trucost's Research Process

S&P Global Trucost sheds light on companies’ environmental performance using a four-step research process.

Trucost Research Process

About S&P Global Trucost

S&P Global Trucost is a leader in carbon and environmental data and risk analysis. S&P Global Trucost assesses risks relating to climate change, natural resource constraints, and broader environmental, social, and governance factors. More details on S&P Global Trucost’s methodology are available here.

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