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Department of Finance Initiative in Sustainable Finance

Climate and Biodiversity Finance

Table of contents

Climate change and biodiversity conservation stand out as two of the most daunting and urgent challenges confronting our planet. Within this context, researchers in focus area explore the integration of climate and biodiversity related risks and evaluate how such risks are already influencing actors in industry and finance.

This research focus area delves into the methodologies employed by financial institutions to gauge, evaluate, and mitigate climate and biodiversity risks, while also pinpointing behavioral aspects that affect decision-making. 

Research Highlights

Weiterführende Informationen

Crucial Gaps in Climate Risk Assessment Methods

More about Crucial Gaps in Climate Risk Assessment Methods

A study by Giacomo Bressan, Anja Duranovic, Irene Monasterolo and Stefano Battiston, recently published in Nature Communications, reveals that current methods often rely on simplified data, leading to underestimation of up to 70% in potential losses. Their new methodology, which considers detailed asset information such as factory locations, equipment, and natural resources, offers a more accurate risk picture.

Corporate Climate Lobbying

More about Corporate Climate Lobbying

A recent paper titledCorporate Climate Lobbying by Markus Leippold, Zacharias Sautner, and Tingyu Yu offers a unique deep dive into the corporate climate lobbying architecture in the United States and new insights into the determinants and consequences of climate lobby expenditures.

Nature Risk Pricing

More about Nature Risk Pricing

Dr. Chiara Colesanti Senni is a post-doctoral researcher at the University of Zurich in the fields of environmental risks, financial supervision, and monetary policy. During her PhD at ETH Zurich, she focused on the transition to a low-carbon economy, including the possibility for central banks to adopt emission-based interest rates in their lending facilities.

Selected Publications

Do Investors Care About Biodiversity? 
Alexandre Garel, Arthur Romec, Zacharias Sautner, and Alexander F. Wagner
Review of Finance (forthcoming), Swiss Finance Institute Research Paper No. 23-24 (2024), European Corporate Governance Institute – Finance Working Paper No. 905 (2023)

Firm-level Climate Change Exposure
Zacharias Sautner,  Laurence van Lent, Grigory Vilkov,  and Ruishen Zhang
Journal of Finance (2023)

Investor Rewards to Climate Responsibility: Stock-Price Responses to the Opposite Shocks of the 2016 and 2020 U.S. Elections
Stefano Ramelli, Alexander F. Wagner, Richard J. Zeckhauser, Alexandre Ziegler
The Review of Corporate Finance Studies (2021)

The Importance of Climate Risks for Institutional Investors
Philipp Krueger, Zacharias Sautner, and Laura T. Starks
Swiss Finance Institute Research Paper No. 18-58 (2020)
European Corporate Governance Institute - Finance Working Paper No. 610 (2019)

Carbon Tail Risk
Emirhan Ilhan, Zacharias Sautner, and Grigory Vilkov
The Review of Financial Studies (2020)