A concise overview of the scoring framework, rating architecture, data methodology, and intellectual foundations of the Climactix Global Climate Risk Intelligence Platform.
The Climactix Intelligence Score (CIS) is an institutional-grade, forward-looking climate risk rating system designed to quantify how climate change can affect the future performance, resilience, valuation, and competitiveness of an organization. Unlike conventional ESG scores that reward disclosure volume, CIS measures six distinct dimensions of climate risk exposure and management quality — producing a composite score from 0 to 100 mapped to a 16-grade letter rating from AAA through D.
The methodology is industry-adjusted, evidence-verified, confidence-separated, and fully auditable. Every score component is traceable to a data input, a weighted indicator, and a peer benchmark reference. CIS is built for institutional use by investors, lenders, insurers, regulators, and corporate boards — not for marketing or ESG reporting purposes.
Conventional ESG rating methodologies fail to serve investors and risk managers because they measure disclosure quality rather than actual risk exposure. A company that publishes comprehensive sustainability reports but operates coal-intensive assets in flood-prone regions may score higher than a genuinely low-risk enterprise with limited disclosure capacity.
CIS is built on a different foundation. It asks a single primary question: "How much can climate change impact this organization's future financial performance, resilience, and competitiveness?" — and answers it through quantified, evidence-backed, industry-calibrated scoring.
The methodology is explicitly designed to support:
The CIS is a weighted composite of six scoring pillars. Each pillar is independently scored on a 0–100 scale using indicator-specific algorithms. Pillar weights are not fixed — they are calibrated per industry using Climactix's proprietary materiality ontology (see Section 4).
| PILLAR | DIMENSION | DEFAULT WEIGHT | RANGE | KEY INDICATORS |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| P1 | Climate Governance | 15% | 12–20% | Board climate committee, CCO appointment, executive remuneration linkage, board agenda frequency, climate in enterprise risk framework, external assurance |
| P2 | Physical Risk Exposure | 20% | 10–30% | Flood zone facility exposure, heat stress index, water stress score, cyclone & wildfire exposure, coastal/sea-level risk, supply chain geo-concentration |
| P3 | Transition Risk Readiness | 20% | 15–32% | Carbon intensity (tCO2e/$M revenue), fossil fuel dependency, net-zero pathway credibility, CBAM & ETS exposure, stranded asset risk, carbon price exposure |
| P4 | Disclosure & Data Quality | 15% | 12–20% | BRSR completeness, TCFD/ISSB/GRI/SASB alignment, CDP response, third-party assurance, historical data years, restatement history |
| P5 | Resilience & Adaptation | 15% | 10–20% | Adaptation plan, business continuity (climate), climate CAPEX %, resilience project count, ISSB S2 scenario analysis, supply chain resilience plan |
| P6 | Financial Materiality | 15% | 8–18% | Revenue-at-risk %, EBITDA sensitivity, asset impairment risk, NGFS scenario modeling, climate disclosure in financial statements, investor materiality communication |
The CIS rating scale uses a 16-grade letter system from AAA through D — structured to be immediately legible to institutional audiences, consistent in interpretation, and designed to convey relative climate risk quality with precision. Ratings are assigned at the time of assessment and reviewed upon material data updates or annual reassessment cycles.
| GRADE | SCORE RANGE | CATEGORY | DESCRIPTION |
|---|---|---|---|
| AAA | 95–100 | Investment Prime | Sector benchmark. Exemplary governance, verified disclosures, near-zero transition risk. |
| AA+ / AA / AA- | 80–94 | Investment Strong | Top-decile performance. Robust across all pillars with minor improvement areas. |
| A+ / A / A- | 65–79 | Investment Adequate | Above industry median. Credible management with measurable improvement potential. |
| BBB+ / BBB / BBB- | 50–64 | Baseline Exposure | Around industry median. Material gaps in one or more pillars. Monitor for deterioration. |
| BB / B | 40–49 | Elevated Risk | Structural deficiencies. Inadequate adaptation planning or disclosure. Investor caution advised. |
| CCC / CC / C | 10–39 | Severe Vulnerability | Critical multi-pillar failures. Near-term financial climate risk elevated. Remediation required. |
| D | 0–9 | Default | No meaningful climate management. Existential exposure without mitigation pathway. |
A single universal weighting across all industries produces misleading ratings. A cement plant faces a fundamentally different materiality profile than a software company. Climactix addresses this through a proprietary industry ontology covering 20 sectors, each with calibrated pillar weights, material indicator sets, peer group definitions, and carbon intensity benchmarks.
Key examples of industry materiality divergence:
One of the defining methodological innovations of CIS is the explicit separation of performance score from confidence score. These are always reported independently and should never be collapsed into a single number.
A company may receive an AA rating but a Low Confidence score — meaning the inputs supporting that rating are insufficiently verified to be relied upon for institutional decision-making. Conversely, a company may have a BBB rating with Very High Confidence, meaning the lower performance is well-supported by verified data.
Every claim submitted in a Climactix assessment is classified against four evidence statuses. Unverified claims on high-materiality indicators (net-zero targets, Scope 1 emissions, revenue-at-risk) carry a doubled penalty. Evidence from regulatory filings carries the highest trust weight (1.00); self-declared claims with no supporting document carry the lowest (0.30).
Climactix operates an eight-rule automated greenwashing detection engine that runs on every assessment. Triggered flags accumulate into a Greenwashing Risk rating — separate from the CIS performance score. The engine is calibrated against ISSB S2, TCFD, CDP, and BRSR requirements and looks for structural inconsistencies between disclosed commitments and verifiable evidence.
Greenwashing Risk is rated Low (0–1 flags), Moderate (2), Elevated (3), High (4), or Critical (5+). All triggered flags are listed verbatim in the generated report with the specific rule reference.
CIS translates physical and transition risk exposure into scenario-adjusted financial impact projections across four NGFS-aligned pathways. Base financial exposure inputs (revenue-at-risk %, EBITDA sensitivity, asset impairment risk) are multiplied by scenario-specific factors derived from NGFS transition pathway calibration.
Every CIS output includes a percentile ranking against three reference groups: the company's industry peer group, its regional peer group, and a cross-sector reference. Percentiles are computed using a piecewise-linear cumulative distribution function anchored at sector-specific P25, P50, and P75 statistics derived from Climactix's industry research database.
Pillar-level peer comparison is also provided — each of the six pillars is benchmarked against the industry median to identify whether specific dimensions are Above Peers, Inline with Peers, or Below Peers. This supports targeted improvement planning rather than aggregate score chasing.
Every CIS report includes a Methodology Appendix — a complete trace of every indicator score, weight applied, evidence status, benchmark referenced, and framework alignment used to produce the final rating. No Climactix score is a black box. This principle is non-negotiable.
The Appendix allows an independent auditor, regulator, or board director to reconstruct the score from first principles using only the assessment inputs. This auditability is what distinguishes CIS from legacy ESG ratings that produce scores without traceable calculation paths.
CIS is designed to be compatible with and informative of the major global climate disclosure and risk management frameworks. The scoring indicators, data requirements, and output reports are aligned to the following standards:
Framework alignment status for each standard is assessed in the Disclosure Pillar and reported in the Framework Alignment Matrix — one of the 18 components generated per assessment. Alignment levels: Aligned Partial Missing