Macquarie's Green Investment Group (GIG) and Bloomberg NEF (BNEF) developed a Carbon Score tool to standardise climate-related data and assess carbon impact.

The initiative was started to address a shortfall in climate-related information for renewables projects.

The Carbon Score tool brings together GIG's Carbon Score methodology and BNEF's energy project data into one interactive dataset.

It allows asset owners and managers to assess the carbon impact of over 40,000 global wind and solar energy projects. This partnership now enables GIG's Carbon Score to be applied to more than 60% of the world's consented wind and solar projects.

The Carbon Score measures a wind or solar asset's carbon reduction potential, through avoiding greenhouse gas emissions associated with the electricity grid where the projects are located.

The companies claim that by bringing together their unique offerings – GIG's knowledge of green impact evaluation and quantification and its Carbon Scores methodology, and BNEF's global database of renewable energy projects and knowledge of how to design the functionality – they were able to offer insight into positive impact, which investors could apply to their portfolios.

“As the impact investing market continues to grow, so does the need for clear, robust, standardised environmental impact data,” said Mark Dooley, global head of GIG. “The ground-breaking partnership between BNEF and GIG provides an assessment of the carbon impact of over 60% of the world’s consented wind and solar projects, enabling investors and developers to quantify their positive contribution in tackling climate change.”

In addition, the tool can assist prospective investors in identifying assets that align with their climate and green impact targets.