Intercontinental Exchange, Inc. (NYSE: ICE), a leading operator of global exchanges and clearing houses and provider of data and listings services, today announced that Breckinridge Capital Advisors has selected ICE Climate Risk, Powered by risQ, to provide climate risk data and analytics on the municipal bond market. ICE Climate Risk was launched by ICE Data Services and risQ to provide innovative climate risk analytics, to enable the municipal bond ecosystem to incorporate climate risk into project and investment decisions.
“In a very short time, ESG has become a critical component of investment portfolios, and Breckinridge is at the forefront of those offerings,” said Lynn Martin, President of ICE Data Services. “The combination of our industry leading evaluated prices and reference data together with geospatial data from risQ provides our customers with the ability to assess climate driven risks in the municipal bond market in an efficient manner.”
Breckinridge is an independently owned asset management firm specializing in investment grade fixed income portfolios and has been a first mover in integrating ESG into its investment framework. The firm was recently awarded an ESG Manager Award by Chief Investment Officer for its innovation and outstanding approach in ESG and climate integration.
“ICE Climate Risk gives us increased visibility into the environmental risks that exist in the municipal bond market,” said Michael Bonanno, vice president, analyst and municipal sustainability lead at Breckinridge Capital Advisors. “The level of granularity that risQ and ICE provides is of value and adds a new component to evaluating a security for potential risk, while also matching the requirements that we’re seeing from clients to include ESG as a factor in investments.”
ICE Climate Risk, Powered by risQ combines cutting-edge climate science, catastrophe modelling and geospatial machine learning technology from risQ with ICE Data Services’ leading municipal pricing and reference data to offer a new tool to quantitively measure climate risk in municipal bonds.
“The importance of climate risk to the municipal bond market is becoming increasingly clear, increasingly pressing and, with risQ’s analytics, increasingly quantified and actionable,” said Evan Kodra, CEO of risQ. “Breckinridge has been both a thought partner and among a dozen testing partners. We’re proud to have a market leader like Breckinridge using risQ’s analytics via our partners at ICE.”
