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Effects of Climate Change on Corporate Credit Ratings

How S&P Global Ratings gauges companies’ environmental and climate risks and opportunities, and what the trends reveal.

By Michael Wilkins & Peter Kernan | Updated on March 08, 2018
Increasingly frequent and severe weather events are symptomatic of a wider shift in global weather patterns. The uncommonly destructive Atlantic hurricanes Harvey, Irma, and Maria are a few examples from the past year.

As the damages resulting from global weather trends compound year by year, international credit markets have begun to take climate change more seriously. Environmental and climate (E&C) risks—as well as opportunities—may affect an entity’s capacity and willingness to meet its financial commitments. Therefore, S&P Global Ratings incorporates these considerations into our ratings methodology and analytics. We factor projected short-, medium-, and long-term E&C impacts into various analytical inputs used in our credit analysis methodology. And where these factors have a material impact, they can result in a change to the rating.

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