Academic research and data

Research and data partners
As part of the LSE’s Global School of Sustainability and the academic partner of the Transition Pathway Initiative (TPI)—a global investor-led initiative backed by asset owners and supported by asset managers—the TPI Centre works closely with research and data partners across its projects. LSEG is TPI’s data partner and conducts the Management Quality assessments, with TPI data at the core of FTSE's TPI Climate Transition Index Series. The Centre also acts as the academic research expert for the Assessing Sovereign Climate-related Opportunities and Risks (ASCOR) project.

What we do
The Centre develops assessment methodologies to evaluate entities across different market segments and applies these to deliver annual, high-quality analyses on whether their pace of decarbonisation and targets align with the Paris Agreement goals. It also examines whether these entities have put in place the governance mechanisms and transition planning necessary to implement those targets. Transparency is a core principle of the Centre's work: all data is open-source and methodologies are publicly available. Through its collaboration with the TPI, the Centre ensures its research is not only robust but also decision-useful in real-world scenarios, with insights directly tailored to the needs of the financial sector.

Carbon Performance (CP): a methodology that assesses the largest public-listed companies in high-emission sectors by market capitalisation against sector-specific quantitative benchmarks, to determine their emissions pathway alignment with the goals of the Paris Agreement. 

Management Quality (MQ): a framework that scores companies based on their climate governance and management practices, including reporting and targets on greenhouse gas emissions, as well as an evaluation of the credibility of companies’ climate transition plans.

Banks: examines 10 key areas of banks’ climate performance through the Net Zero Banking Assessment Framework, including their decarbonisation strategy and climate governance. Additionally, the Carbon Performance Alignment Matrix offers an in-depth quantitative assessment of the alignment of banks’ sectoral decarbonisation targets with low-carbon benchmarks, along with a comprehensive summary of which sectors and business activities these targets cover.

Sovereigns: monitors the progress made by countries in managing the low-carbon transition and the impacts of climate change as part of the Assessing Sovereign Climate-related Opportunities (ASCOR) project. Through the ASCOR framework, countries’ emissions pathways, climate policies and climate finance are assessed.

Transition planning: assesses how companies in high-emitting sectors translate climate commitments into concrete action. These assessments building upon the Management Quality and Carbon Performance assessments to offer a deeper evaluation of companies in high-emitting sectors, focusing on capital expenditure alignment, the robustness of emissions reduction targets, and the integration of climate considerations into corporate strategy. These sector-specific assessments enable investors to identify companies with credible transition strategies.

Across its projects, the Centre has developed an integrated workflow model that meets complementary objectives (see image above). These assessments encompass a growing universe with increasingly timely updates, enabling a breadth of coverage to support wide adoption in investment decision-making. Leveraging the Centre’s academic strength, the methodologies and data form the bedrock of research insights, which explore relationships between entities and sectors as well as other topics relevant to the net zero transition. These insights and related educational outreach help investors who allocate and stewardship capital to support the transition.

Value proposition
A leading research centre delivering independent, transparent, and high-quality insights that empower investors to make informed decisions.

Who uses the TPI Centre's outputs?
The Centre's research expertise, independence and strategic support to asset owners place it in a unique position to assist several stakeholder groups that are key to the net zero transition.

Looking ahead
The Centre has grown rapidly since its inception to meet investor demand. Future goals are to expand coverage, sectors, research areas and outreach to continue delivering high-quality data and cutting-edge research.

Governance