Case study: Providing expertise to leading research university

Ogier Sustainable Investment provided expertise to a leading research university developing a climate change mitigation greenwash detection tool.

Client challenge

A leading research university was developing a climate change mitigation greenwash detection tool which analyses company claims and contrasts them with the actual performance and activities of the company.

How we helped

We completed a feasibility study of the product and conducted several stakeholder interviews with asset managers, asset owners and corporates to assess and review the market potential of the product. In addition, Ogier reviewed anti-greenwash regulation requirements across markets to provide further insights to the client. This work contributed to the report that was submitted to Enterprise Ireland.

The tool features machine learning / natural language processing (NLP) classifiers that can sift through a large number of disclosures of companies across numerous channels (eg government filings, social media, analyst calls etc) and identifies climate change mitigation claims of companies. These claims are then contrasted with the actual performance of companies from ground truth datasets, including GHG emissions disclosure quality, environmental fines, climate-related lobbying track records of companies, management voting on climate shareholder resolutions and other measures.

Results

Ogier provided an independent perspective into the green-wash product tool and tested market feasibility by conducting stakeholder interviews and providing a recommendations report to the client on potential improvement areas.