Qontigo announces launch of two new families of climate indexes

By Sarah Lizee

Olympia, Wash., July 2 – Qontigo announced the launch of two new families of climate indexes made up of the Stoxx Paris-Aligned Benchmark indexes and the Stoxx Climate Transition Benchmark indexes.

The new index families cover the Euro Stoxx Climate Transition Benchmark, Euro Stoxx Total Market Climate Transition Benchmark, Stoxx Europe 600 Climate Transition Benchmark, Stoxx Global 1800 Climate Transition Benchmark, Stoxx USA 500 Climate Transition Benchmark and Stoxx USA 900 Climate Transition Benchmark.

These indexes help reduce exposure to climate-related financial risks and include companies that are well-positioned to provide solutions needed to transition to a low-carbon economy, Qontigo said in a press release.

The new benchmarks track the performance of liquid securities from a selection of underlying Stoxx benchmark indexes.

“As the transition to solutions that reflect investor's views on sustainability accelerates, our new climate benchmarks offer an opportunity to track the rigorous approach adopted by the European Commission,” Sebastian Ceria, chief executive officer of Qontigo, said in the release.

“As part of the overall Qontigo ESG ecosystem, these indices act as building blocks to help investors integrate climate-change risks and opportunities into portfolios.”

Although both have similar objectives, the climate transition benchmarks are specifically targeted toward a decarbonization trajectory, while the Paris-aligned benchmarks have even stricter requirements around energy efficiency that coincide with the long-term global warming target of the Paris climate agreement.

Companies identified as non-compliant based on Sustainalytics’ global standards screening assessment or are involved in controversial weapons or tobacco production are not eligible for index selection.

The investment manager is based in Zug, Switzerland.

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